Why should this be treated, in your opinion or in Perry's opinion, as a municipal infrastructure opportunity rather than as a threat to revenue for municipalities? So

starting with the last issue.

So there's a very popular narrative in local municipalities, especially in Gauteng municipalities in the city of Johannesburg, that rooftop solar is the reason why the municipality can't make money selling electricity.

And there's no evidence to back that up.

And in fact, the evidence suggests a much more nuanced and balanced picture of what has been going on.

So there's no doubt that electricity demand is declining.

But there are multiple reasons for that.

around what is the water dividend that could result from coal mine and power station closures in Mpumalanga and why this has received so little public attention in general and also in the context of a local government election?

Are they providing models that other places could be following?

I think it, it's-- there's no doubt that the City of Cape Town is, is leading in terms of feed-in tariffs and in terms of flexibility to allow consumers to feed excess power into the grid.

And what we're saying is that what, what we've seen in some of the other municipalities is a, is a slightly more confrontational approach taken by the municipality.

So for example, if you have solar panels, then you're not allowed to be on prepaid anymore, and you have to go to a much more expensive post-paid account.

You have to go on a time of use tariff.

And unfortunately, what these municipalities are doing is they're just creating an incentive for people to go off grid, particularly because electricity prices are going up by significant amounts above inflation and, and salary increases.

So what municipalities are doing is they're creating an incentive for people to go off the grid, which is exactly what they don't want.

That mechanism for the councils, they will have to invest in.

Are they providing models that other places could be following?

I think there's no doubt that the city of Cape Town is leading in terms of feed-in tariffs and in terms of flexibility to allow consumers to feed excess power into the grid.

And what we're saying is that what we've seen in some of the other municipalities is a slightly more confrontational approach taken by the municipalities.

So, for example, if you have solar panels, then you're not allowed to be on prepaid anymore and you have to go to a much more expensive post-paid account, you have to go on a time of use tariff.

And unfortunately, what these municipalities are doing is they're just creating an incentive for people to go off-grid, particularly because electricity prices are going up by significant amounts above inflation and salary increases.

So what municipalities are doing is they're creating an incentive for people to go off the grid, which is exactly what they don't want, because there's billions and billions of rands worth of infrastructure available to generate electricity at a fraction of the cost the municipalities can buy it from ESCOM.

And you're absolutely correct, Stephen.

And because of the cost of electricity, they then won't have it.