PHUTI MOSOMANE
OPPOSITION parties have slammed President Cyril Ramaphosa’s decision to declare a national State of Disaster, saying they will challenge the decision in court in the next coming days.
DA leader John Steenhuisen said his party will take Ramaphosa to court for declaring loadshedding a national state of disaster.
“The DA can confirm that we have already briefed our lawyers to challenge the announcement in court,” said Steenhuisen.
He said decision shows that Ramaphosa is running out of ideas for a solution to “loadshedding crisis created by the ANC.”
Earlier, Ramaphosa announced during SONA address that government has decided to declare the energy crisis a national state of disaster with immediate effect.
“We are therefore declaring a national state of disaster to respond to the electricity crisis and its effects. The Minister of CoGTA has just gazetted the declaration of the State of Disaster, which will begin with immediate effect,” Ramaphosa told a joint sitting of Parliament on Thursday night.
For this, the DA says Ramaphosa is “desperately grasping at the straw of a sweeping National State of Disaster.”
South Africa has been down this road before during the Covid-19 pandemic, which was declared a national disaster, said Steenhuisen.
“We saw the fatal flaws in the National State of Disaster legislation, which allows the ANC unfettered power to loot without any parliamentary oversight. 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,” he added.
The DA leader said South Africa cannot survive another round of the looting and irrationality similar to what transpired during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Steenhuisen said 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”.
“He also created yet another minister to add to the other two already getting in the way of a solution to the energy crisis. Instead of decentralising control and trusting in the market mechanism, Ramaphosa has opted to centralise even more power in his own Super Presidency – which lacks democratic oversight mechanisms, with Parliament lying in ruins and the Presidency having no portfolio committee to oversee it. More centralisation and less accountability is exactly the opposite of what SA urgently needs right now,” Steenhuisen said.
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), whose members stormed the stage where Ramaphosa was waiting to deliver the speech, has also rejected the call by Ramaphosa to declare energy crisis a national state of disaster.
“The consideration of state of national disaster is premised on greed, corruption and an uncontrollable desire to privatise Eskom without being held accountable. It will bring no permanent solution to the energy crisis we are facing and must be rejected with the contempt it deserves,” EFF leader Julius Malema said.
Action SA president Herman Mashaba said: What we witnessed tonight at SONA, is a clear example of executive overreach and will open SA up looting just as we witnessed during COVID-19.”
“We will never support a State of Disaster that gives the Presidency and the executive centralised power to abuse state resources,” said Mashaba.
Civil society group OUTA said: “Not sure the South African government understands the scale of the problems with electricity crisis. We cannot allow a repeat of PPE corruption to happen under a State of Disaster.”
Political analyst Ebrahim Fakir said a state of disaster is not going to help the Eskom or loadshedding problem.
“Electricity has moved on from being a policy and governance problem to being a science/physics problem (add criminality and corruption),” Fakir said.
ANC spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu has however welcomed the announcement by Ramaphosa decision for declaring a state of disaster as the most “decisive step in resolving the energy crisis.”.
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