On the evening of March 23 2020, a few months after the outbreak of the Covid-19 virus, the government announced a “state of national disaster”, locking down the country for a period of 21 days to suppress the spread of a virus that would soon go airborne and global.
What started off as a 21-day lockdown, including a dusk-to-dawn curfew, would last about two years of various versions of lockdowns. Within weeks soldiers were deployed to enforce the lockdowns, and had killed a man who was drinking at his home in Alexandra township.
As part of protecting health and other essential service workers such as police — who continued working during the lockdown — the government went on a sending spree to procure masks for these front-line workers. By June, when it became clear that the pandemic was not easing, the government announced a Covid-19 social grant of R350 a month for any South African who was not receiving any of the many grants paid by the state.
Within months, the auditor-general was reporting that public servants, who didn’t qualify for this grant, were helping themselves and their families to a grant that was meant to avert a humanitarian disaster.
Simultaneously, it emerged that opportunistic people, mostly connected to the governing party, were also scoring multimillion-rand tenders to supply (and sometimes not supply) masks to government employees.
This unscrupulous looting is still fresh in most South Africans’ minds. On Monday, they were reminded of these painful memories when President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that, in its wisdom, his party bosses had instructed him and other cadres to declare a national “state of disaster” to end the load-shedding crisis.
Looking uneasy as he read his prepared remarks at the conclusion of his party’s national executive committee lekgotla, Ramaphosa said: “There was talk about a national state of disaster, like what we did when we faced Covid-19, and there is broad agreement that we should proceed in that direction.”
He went on to say: “Work is already under way within government to establish whether the legal requirements for the declaration of a national state of disaster are met and what specific actions we would be empowered to undertake to urgently resolve load-shedding within the framework of a national state of disaster. This matter will receive attention, including at the cabinet lekgotla, and must be resolved without delay.”
Given his party’s majority, this is as good as done. That is if Ramaphosa, now emboldened by his election for a second term as party president, sees the logic of this extraordinary measure. Within minutes of his address social media were abuzz, with most posts ridiculing the announcement as a public relations gimmick and an ANC ploy to plunder public resources.
Julius Malema’s EFF, which is calling for Ramaphosa’s resignation during its planned national shutdown on March 20, accused him of incompetence and said the ANC was angling for more corruption.
It remains unclear what freedoms South Africans will have to sacrifice this time around in the name of ending load-shedding, which has decimated many small businesses and forced many large businesses to redirect their capital expenditures to projects designed to liberate them from the Eskom grid.
An emerging narrative, which is fast gaining traction, suggests state-owned enterprises (SOEs) such as Eskom and Transnet are collapsing because of tedious competitive and transparent procurement processes. So, it is believed a rushed but opaque procurement process for spare parts, as would be made possible under a national state of disaster, will sharpen the SOEs’ competitive edge. This is partly true, but its significance is overstated.
South Africans are correct to be apprehensive about a state of national disaster that will throw more darkness on the procurement processes of these beleaguered entities. Such a sourcing regime will make the cabinet less accountable.
It is curious that the elephant in the room wasn’t discussed by the ANC. There was no suggestion in the statement that policy incoherence and squabbling between the president’s ministers of energy and public enterprises was discussed at the ANC NEC lekgotla.
Similarly, there is no clarity on whether Eskom, which is overseen by the public enterprises ministry, will be moving to the energy ministry, which now sets energy policy, as demanded by the ANC conference that concluded in early January.
Also, the two statements — one by Ramaphosa and the other on Tuesday by ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula — shed little light about how serious the ANC views the fact that Eskom is without a permanent CEO after the resignation of André de Ruyter in December.
Of course, the point isn’t to suggest that a CEO can resolve all of Eskom’s problems. But, as the first among equals, the position is important, especially during the time of designing solutions for this entity.
As Mbalula was speaking on Tuesday, Eskom escalated load-shedding. Interestingly, the ANC announced that SA, which is chairing Brics (the club including Brazil, Russia, India and China), should use this position to get the group to focus on energy security.
Also unsaid this week was the most obvious, but unthinkable, solution: that in the middle of this never-ending crisis Pretoria should ask Beijing to build three new power stations in the next two years or take over and run the existing but problematic ones such as Tutuka.
• Dludlu, a former Sowetan editor, is CEO of the Small Business Institute.
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