Pan-African Parliament Power Cut: Can PAP Enforce South Africa’s Host Country Agreement?

The disconnection of electricity over a R37.2 million municipal account raises questions about South Africa’s hosting commitments, PAP’s legal remedies and its long-delayed permanent headquarters.

The disconnection of electricity to the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) has left South Africa facing an uncomfortable question: how can the host of an African Union parliament allow its headquarters to lose an essential service over an unpaid municipal account?

City Power disconnected the Midrand premises on 21 September 2026. It reported arrears of R37,227,157.06 and said a payment of R50,000 a week earlier had made little difference to the balance. The reported debt does not, by itself, establish who is responsible for paying it or how much relates specifically to PAP’s electricity consumption.

The incident is particularly embarrassing because South Africa secured the right to host PAP in 2004, when Egypt also sought the seat. More than 22 years later, PAP remains in temporary accommodation at Gallagher Estate, and the permanent complex promised under the Host Country Agreement has not been delivered.

What the Host Country Agreement requires

The Host Country Agreement was concluded between the African Union and the Government of South Africa to provide a seat for PAP. Article III requires South Africa to provide a dedicated, equipped and furnished permanent complex at its expense. Pending its completion, the government undertook to make an appropriate temporary venue available.

The agreement addresses utilities separately. South Africa undertakes, as far as possible, to assist PAP in obtaining electricity, water and communications at charges no less favourable than those offered to comparable users. If service is interrupted or threatened, it must give PAP’s needs the same priority it gives other international organizations, as far as its powers permit. Technical annexes setting out the arrangements for premises and facilities form part of the agreement. In practice, South Africa’s hosting arrangements also include payment for utilities: DIRCO told the South African National Assembly that it pays the premises’ managing agent for utility consumption. The agreement’s wording should therefore be read alongside the arrangements through which South Africa has undertaken to fund and manage PAP’s accommodation.

The agreement does not make electricity free: PAP’s exemption from direct taxes expressly excludes charges that are, in substance, payments for public utility services. But the fact that a charge is payable does not establish which institution agreed to pay it. That question must be answered from the applicable annexes, lease, building management arrangements and municipal account.

DIRCO says it has been paying for utilities

In an October 2025 written answer to South Africa’s National Assembly, the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation said that the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) had assumed full custodianship, management and implementation of the agreement on South Africa’s behalf. The minister identified the precinct, transportation, interpretation, information technology and security among the logistical support provided for PAP.

DIRCO reported paying approximately R3.86 million per month in rent and an average of R598,821.80 per month for utilities to the premises’ managing agent during the 2025/26 financial year. The department said it continued to pay rent because no permanent precinct was available.

South Africa secured the right to host PAP and undertook to provide its accommodation. More tellingly, DIRCO has confirmed that its actual hosting arrangements include paying the premises’ managing agent for utilities. It is therefore reasonable to look first to the South African hosting and property-management arrangements for an explanation of the unpaid municipal account. PAP’s occupation of the premises does not, without the billing and contractual records, make it responsible for the arrears. The immediate questions are what DIRCO paid, what the managing agent remitted, whose name is on the account and how the R37.2 million balance was calculated.

South African parliamentarians warned of earlier failures

A report by South Africa’s delegation on PAP’s November 2024 session recorded that water and electricity had been unavailable during plenary while international guests were present. It described the episode as a “huge embarrassment” for South Africa as host. Water took five days to reconnect, according to the report, following intervention by South Africa’s Secretary to Parliament with Johannesburg’s executive mayor.

The delegation attributed that earlier water disconnection to non-payment by the company managing the PAP precinct. It recommended that South Africa’s Parliament call DIRCO and the responsible department to explain the failures and how they would prevent a recurrence. It also called for renewed attention to the permanent seat. The September 2026 power cut gives those recommendations fresh urgency.

A temporary seat after more than two decades

The permanent precinct is the larger unfinished obligation. In 2023, South Africa’s Portfolio Committee on International Relations and Cooperation visited the site identified in Midrand for PAP’s headquarters. It reported that neither DIRCO nor the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure had provided a concrete progress report on the project.

DIRCO’s October 2025 answer confirmed that PAP was still in rented accommodation. It said that R30 million had been paid to Public Works in February 2002 for the permanent precinct project, but the project did not proceed after adverse environmental findings at the identified site. Despite the passage of more than two decades, no completed permanent headquarters has replaced Gallagher Estate.

This delay has consequences beyond rental expenditure. PAP remains dependent on a temporary property and a chain of agreements involving government departments, a property manager and municipal service providers. The recurrent interruption of essential services demonstrates why the permanent-seat commitment should be treated as an operational obligation, not a distant architectural ambition.

Can PAP demand performance?

PAP is more than a passive occupant of the building. Article II gives it legal personality in South Africa, including capacity to contract and institute legal proceedings. It also says that PAP’s President, or a designated representative, represents the Parliament for the purposes of the agreement.

PAP is the intended beneficiary of commitments made between the AU and South Africa. South African contract law recognizes that, where its requirements are met, a promise made for the benefit of a third party can give that beneficiary enforceable rights. But PAP has an even more direct textual basis for action: Article XIV expressly provides for the settlement of disputes between PAP and the South African government arising from the Host Country Agreement.

Article XIV calls for negotiation or another agreed means of settlement first. If that fails, it provides for arbitration at either side’s request and a binding decision. PAP’s President could therefore formally raise both the disruption of essential services and the failure to deliver a permanent complex with South Africa through DIRCO, in coordination with the AU as signatory to the agreement.

Specific performance is a remedy worth examining, rather than an automatic result. PAP’s legal advisers would need to identify the proper forum, account for the agreement’s negotiation and arbitration procedure, and frame the relief sought. A demand for concrete steps to secure reliable electricity may be easier to define immediately than a demand that South Africa pay an unverified municipal balance. The commitment to provide a permanent complex raises a separate and substantial question of performance.

The PRC Sub-Committee offers an AU channel for resolution

PAP’s leadership can also bring the matter to the Permanent Representatives Committee (PRC) Sub-Committee on Headquarters and Host Agreements. According to the AU, the Sub-Committee is responsible for the relationship between the Union and countries hosting its organs, institutions and agencies. Its mandate includes liaising with AU Commission officials about host agreements and related privileges and immunities; reviewing agreements and recommending amendments; initiating meetings with host governments to resolve problems; and using its good offices to address misunderstandings over implementation.

This is a practical avenue with a history specific to PAP. An AU Sub-Committee report records that the Executive Council asked the Sub-Committee and the Commission to work with PAP and South Africa on a review of the Host Country Agreement to address difficulties encountered by both. The Sub-Committee subsequently invited representatives of PAP and South Africa to discuss the agreement.

PAP can therefore ask the Sub-Committee, working with the Commission, to place the electricity interruption and the permanent precinct on its agenda and convene South African authorities. It can seek an agreed account of the utility arrangements and a timetable for resolving the immediate disruption. The Sub-Committee can also examine whether the agreement or its technical annexes need clearer provisions on payment, property management and continuity of essential services.

That process would support, rather than displace, PAP’s rights under Article XIV. The Sub-Committee’s good offices may help the AU and South Africa settle the issue through consultation. If they do not, PAP can still consider the agreement’s formal dispute procedure.

What PAP’s leadership should do

PAP’s President and Bureau should seek immediate restoration of reliable supply while requiring DIRCO to convene City Power, Johannesburg, Public Works, the property owner and the managing agent. They should obtain the technical annexes, lease, management agreements, itemized municipal statements and proof of payments needed to identify where the account fell into arrears.

The leadership can then initiate formal consultations under the Host Country Agreement, with the AU’s involvement, and refer the hosting difficulties to the PRC Sub-Committee for engagement with South Africa. It should request a written plan for utility payments, backup systems and delivery of the permanent precinct. If consultations fail, Article XIV’s arbitration procedure remains available for consideration.

South Africa’s Parliament also has a role. Its delegation called for explanations after the 2024 interruption, and its portfolio committee previously found no concrete progress account for the permanent building. The relevant committees should now require DIRCO and Public Works to explain the latest failure, establish whether payments for utilities reached the service provider, and present a credible timetable for the headquarters.

The electricity disconnection is more than a dispute over a municipal bill. It tests whether South Africa’s commitments as host remain effective when the Parliament they were designed to serve cannot reliably use its premises. PAP’s leadership has avenues under the agreement and within the AU to insist on answers and performance. It should use them.