CHARLES MOLELE
PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa has announced a national State of Disaster to deal with the electricity crisis at Eskom, and its effects on small businesses that are suffering from the devastating impact of loadshedding.
The declaration of a national State of Disaster comes as rolling power cuts of up to 8 hours per day are hitting homes, factories and businesses across the nation.
Ramaphosa made the announcement before a joint sitting of the two houses of Parliament at the Cape Town City Hall on Thursday night.
He said the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA), Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, has just gazetted the declaration of the State of Disaster, which will begin with immediate effect.
“The State of Disaster will enable us to provide practical measures that we need to take to support businesses in the food production, storage and retail supply chain, including for the rollout of generators, solar panels and uninterrupted power supply,” said Ramaphosa,
“We must act to lessen the impact of the energy crisis on farmers, on small businesses, on our water infrastructure and our transport network. The National Disaster Management Centre has consequently classified the energy crisis and its impact as a disaster.”
Ramaphosa said “extraordinary circumstances called for extraordinary measures”.
“The energy crisis is an existential threat to our economy and social fabric. We must spare no effort, and we must allow no delay, in implementing these measures,” he said.
“In a time of crisis, we need a single point of command and a single line of march. Just as we address the cause of the crisis, we also need to address its impact. The crisis has progressively evolved to affect every part of society.”
According to the Government Gazette published on the website of the Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) Department on Thursday night, the national State of Disaster was declared in order to prevent “the possible progression to total blackout from occurring and taking into account the possibility to augment existing measures already undertaken by the organs of state to deal with electricity supply constraint”.
The State of Disaster will enable government to provide practical measures that are needed to take to support businesses in the food production, storage and retail supply chain, including for the rollout of generators, solar panels and uninterrupted power supply.
The State of Disaster will further enable government to exempt critical infrastructure such as hospitals and water treatment plants from load shedding.
The Auditor-General will be brought in to ensure continuous monitoring of expenditure, in order to guard against any abuses of the funds needed to attend to this disaster, said Ramaphosa.
To deal more effectively and urgently with the energy challenges that confront South Africa today, Ramaphosa also announced that he will appoint a Minister of Electricity in the Presidency to assume full responsibility for overseeing all aspects of the electricity crisis response, including the work of the National Energy Crisis Committee.
“The Minister of Electricity will focus full-time and work with the Eskom board and management on ending load shedding and ensuring that the Energy Action Plan is implemented without delay,” he said.
“So as to remove any confusion, the Minister of Public Enterprises will remain the shareholder representative of Eskom and steer the restructuring of Eskom. ensure the establishment of the transmission company, oversee the implementation of the just energy.”
Ramaphosa added: “The process of restructuring government will give us an opportunity to determine the positioning of various areas of responsibilities and how best the various ministries and departments can best serve our national objectives. We are focusing our attention on the energy crisis right now and will address the restructuring of government in due course.”
Meanwhile, Democratic Alliance (DA) leader John Steenhuisen has slammed Ramaphosa’s decision to declare a national State of Disaster, adding that his party has already briefed its lawyers to challenge the announcement in court.
“The DA is already in court to declare the Disaster Management Act unconstitutional, and we will now do the same to prevent the ANC looting frenzy that will follow Ramaphosa’s dangerous and desperate announcement like night follows day,” Steenhuisen said in a statement.
“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.”
“A National State of Disaster under the guise of dealing with the loadshedding crisis will similarly empower the ANC to abuse procurement processes and issue nonsensical regulations that have nothing to do with the electricity crisis. The DA will not sit back and allow the ANC to abuse the electricity disaster it created to loot and further abuse the people of South Africa.”
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