A general view of Matla Power Station on 9 March 2021, in Secunda, South Africa. Picture: Gallo Images/Lefty Shivambu
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s declaration of a national state of disaster on the country’s energy crisis and load shedding will be presented with an early challenge.
On Thursday night, Ramaphosa announced the national state of disaster would be implemented with immediate effect during his State of the Nation Address (Sona).
The move has already been gazzetted by the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta), Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has since confirmed its intention to take legal action against the declaration.
The DA previously called for the declaration of a state of disaster to curb rolling power cuts.
This has led to some accusing the DA of contradicting itself.
The DA’s previous calls, however, specifically wanted the state of disaster to be “ring-fenced” around Eskom.
The party says this will allow funds to be re-allocated for specific problems, such as the open-cycle turbines. It also wants independent experts and engineers to help solve Eskom’s problems.
The DA says Ramaphosa’s announcement will open the floodgates to widespread looting and corruption.
“South Africa has been down this road before. During the Covid-19 disaster, we saw the fatal flaws in the national state of disaster legislation, which allows the ANC unfettered power to loot without any parliamentary oversight,” DA leader John Steenhuisen said in a statement.
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“A national state of disaster under the guise of dealing with the load shedding crisis it created, will similarly empower the ANC to abuse procurement processes and issue nonsensical regulations that have nothing to do with the electricity crisis.
Will ring-fencing the energy state of disaster around Eskom prevent this though? The DA doesn’t specify how looting and corruption will disappear if the state of disaster is ring-fenced.
Steenhuisen indicated that the DA has already briefed its lawyers to challenge the declaration in court.
Trade union Solidarity says it will go ahead with its legal action against the declaration.
“Poor central control landed us in this crisis. Such poor control in even more measures will not get us out of the crisis,” Solidarity’s chief executive, Dirk Hermann said on Friday.
Hermann said Solidarity had been left with no choice, but to take the legal route because a state of disaster was “irrational and unnecessary”.
“A state of disaster will not end the energy crisis any faster, but it opens the door to major abuse once again. This is quite simply a lose-lose situation.
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“No amount of legislation will be able to rectify uselessness and incompetence. A state of disaster is equal to giving an incompetent builder a bigger hammer – it will not lead to better construction, but rather to more damage,” he continued.
“Unfortunately, civil society will once again be compelled to go to court to force the government to do the right thing. Solidarity’s legal team has already started to prepare urgent court documents, and these will be served on the government in the coming days.”
According to Ramaphosa, the auditor-general would be involved to guard against the misuse of funds during the state of disaster.
The audits by the auditor-general’s office has, however, been generally ignored in the past particularly by municipalities.
Meanwhile, Ramaphosa further announced there would be a minister of electricity who will be placed in the Presidency.
The minister will oversee all the aspects of the power crisis and will work with Eskom to end load shedding and ensure the energy action plan is implemented.
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