Declaring a state of disaster is like trying to put out a fire with petrol. That’s how some political parties have reacted to the ANC’s plan to deal with the worsening energy crisis.
DECLARING a state of disaster is like trying to put out a fire with petrol.
That’s how some political parties reacted to the ANC’s plan to deal with the worsening energy crisis.
Both the EFF and Solidarity rejected the idea outright. The EFF said the plan was “meaningless” and believed it was “premised on greed, corruption and an uncontrollable desire to privatise Eskom without being held accountable”.
Trade union, Solidarity was also fiercely against the idea, and Connie Mulder, head of the Solidarity Research Institute, said: “The State of Disaster Act is not a short-cut to bypass processes. It is intended to act as a response to something that unexpectedly hits the country.”
Declaring a state of disaster, according to the Act, assigns powers and duties to the national disaster management centre. The Act allows the executive to implement measures aimed at assisting and protecting the public and property as well as providing relief.
This will include co-ordinating the activities of all government agencies and also allocating resources.
The DA, however, welcomed a ring-fenced state of disaster specific to Eskom and the energy sector.
It believes it could release much-needed disaster relief funds to purchase diesel.
“It could also ease some of the regulatory obstacles preventing the rapid deployment of private power generation (including making it easier and cheaper for domestic and commercial customers to install rooftop solar),” the party said.
Ghaleb Cachalia, DA spokesperson for Public Enterprises, said the recommendation from the ANC, Cosatu and SACP comes six months after President Cyril Ramaphosa rejected the idea in favour of the Energy Action Plan (EAP).
The ANC statement on the outcomes of the NEC lekgotla said the president’s EAP, announced in July last year, would be bolstered and called for the acceleration of plans to such an extent that there would be no load shedding by the end of the year.
To meet this objective, the NEC agreed that all measures should be taken to protect, rebuild and save Eskom. The lekgotla said there were billions of rand projected to be underspent, and called for the reprioritisation of funds to address this crisis.
However, there were concerns about the risk of corruption and creating a command council, similar to the National Coronavirus Command Council, that will override Parliament.
CPUT media studies lecturer and analyst Trust Matsilele said: “A state of disaster is normally declared to deal with unforeseen circumstances. It is unfortunate when it is needed in situations that could be predicted.
“The Eskom debacle has been with us for over a decade now. This is not a surprise and, looking at the breakdowns at Medupi and Kusile, point to something that has become endemic.”
Matsilele said that whenever a disaster occurred, it was followed by a season of corruption.
Dan Mafora, from the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution, said that if declared, Parliament has oversight powers over the executive and may require regular reports on progress, or that regulations be placed before it for consideration.
But the difficulty was that because one party was dominant, there may not be the political will to flex Parliament’s oversight powers.
Dawie Roodt, chief economist of the Efficient Group, added that the more the government made use of disaster interventions, the more it indicated a vote of no confidence in itself.
Roodt said confidence in the country, at all levels, was already at an all-time low, and agreed that declaring a state of disaster over the electricity crisis would amount to the inability to hold government to account. However, Roodt was in favour of one being declared, as long as it was limited to the energy sector with extreme oversight to get the objectives achieved.
Independent energy analyst Hilton Trollip said a national state of disaster should only be allowed to be declared if the government could explain why the existing legislative, regulatory and legal frameworks would not allow it to achieve the objectives in its own EAP.
Hilton has dealt with the South African legislative and regulatory framework around energy and electricity for about 30 years and said it was through this understanding that he believed it did not hinder government, and even empowered it, to achieve the objectives in the EAP.
“I think this is a desperate move by the government in the period running up to elections. Many commentators, including election polling, are showing that the electricity disaster and associated disasters (crime, poverty, unemployment) are going to impact hugely,” Hilton said.
