President Cyril Ramaphosa’s declaration of a national disaster over the energy crisis and the country’s burden drop will be given an early challenge.
On Thursday night, Ramaphosa declared a state of national emergency to be implemented directly during his State of the Nation Address (Sona).
The move has been gazetted by the Minister of Cooperatives and Traditional Affairs (Cogta), Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.
‘It has nothing to do with the electricity crisis’
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has since confirmed its intention to take legal action against the declaration.
The DA had earlier called for a state of calamity declaration to prevent power outages.
Contradiction?
This has led some to accuse the DA of contradicting itself.
Previous DA calls, however, specifically wanted disaster situations to be “fenced off” around Eskom.
The party said this would allow funds to be reallocated to specific issues, such as open-cycle turbines. They also want independent experts and engineers to help solve Eskom’s problems.
The DA said Ramaphosa’s announcement would open the floodgates to widespread looting and corruption.
“South Africa has gone down this road before. During the Covid-19 disaster, we saw a fatal flaw in the national disaster law, which allowed the ANC’s power to be usurped without parliamentary oversight,” DA leader John Steenhuisen said in a statement.
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“The state of national disaster by way of solving the load crisis created, will also empower the ANC to abuse the procurement process and issue regulations unrelated to the electricity crisis.
Will the country’s energy disaster plan around Eskom prevent this though? DA does not specify how robbery and corruption will disappear if the disaster situation is ring-fenced.
Court challenge
Steenhuisen indicated that the DA has briefed his lawyers to challenge the declaration in court.
‘Lose-lose situation’
Solidarity unions said they would continue legal action against the declaration.
“Poor central control caused this crisis. Poor control in other measures will not get out of the crisis,” said the chief executive of Solidarity, Dirk Hermann, on Friday.
Hermann said Solidarity had no choice but to take the legal route because the catastrophic situation was “irrational and unnecessary”.
“The state of disaster will not end the energy crisis any faster, but it will open the door to massive abuse again. This is just a lose-lose situation.
READ MORE: Sona 2023: Solidarity threatens legal action if Ramaphosa creates an energy disaster
“There is no law that can justify the uselessness and incompetence. Disaster situations are the same as giving a bigger hammer to an incompetent builder – it will not lead to better construction, but more damage,” he said.
“Unfortunately, civil society will once again be forced to go to court to force the government to do the right thing. Solidarity’s legal team has started preparing important court documents, and these will be presented to the government in a few days.
electricity minister
According to Ramaphosa, the auditor-general will be involved to guard against the misuse of funds during the state of disaster.
However, audits by the auditor-general’s office have been largely ignored in the past especially by municipalities.
Meanwhile, Ramaphosa further announced that there will be an electricity minister to be inducted into the Presidency.
The Minister will monitor all 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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