President Cyril Ramaphosa has declared a state of disaster to address the energy crisis stifling economic growth and job creation efforts, saying the move would help government extend a helping hand to businesses and households and exempt critical infrastructure, including hospitals, from the rolling blackouts.
In his state of the nation address (Sona) in the Cape Town city hall on Thursday, Ramaphosa said co-operative governance & traditional affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma had already gazetted the declaration of the state of disaster, which he said would begin with “immediate effect”.
He also announced he will appoint a minister of electricity, who will be housed in his office, to assume responsibility for all aspects of the crisis, including the work of the national energy crisis committee.
Ramaphosa said load-shedding impedes economic recovery and that without a reliable supply of electricity businesses and assembly lines cannot run.
“Our most immediate task is to dramatically reduce the severity of load-shedding in the coming months and ultimately end load-shedding altogether,” he said, adding SA is on the “grip of a profound energy crisis”.
“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,” the president said.
Auditor-general
“Where technically possible, it will enable us to exempt critical infrastructure such as hospitals and water treatment plants from load-shedding.
“And it will enable us to accelerate energy projects and limit regulatory requirements while maintaining rigorous environmental protections, procurement principles and technical standards.”
Ramaphosa said the auditor-general will be brought in to ensure continuous monitoring of expenditure, “to guard against any abuses of the funds needed to attend to this disaster.”
The energy minister, Ramaphosa said, will focus full time on Eskom and work with the board and management to end load-shedding and ensure that the energy action plan “is implemented without delay”.
Public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan 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 transition programme, and oversee the establishment of the SOE Holding Company.”
The state of disaster will be similar to that declared at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic when a handful of men and women in the national coronavirus command council wielded sweeping powers, including dipping into departmental budgets to provide a soft landing for businesses and individuals.
Privatising
At a media briefing on Wednesday a coalition of trade unions and political parties, including Numsa, the United Democratic Movement and Build One SA, threatened to drag Ramaphosa to court if he declared a state of disaster to address the energy crisis.
The coalition said the rolling blackouts did not constitute a pandemic. “They are a crisis which has been deliberately imposed by his leadership in order to connect more [independent power producers] into the grid for the sole intention of privatising our country’s energy provision,” it said.
The Treasury’s local government budget analysis director, Sadesh Ramjathan, said in a webinar on Wednesday that load-shedding has had a devastating effects on municipalities and has the potential to “spark community protest and civil unrest”.
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