South Africa divided on state of disaster & electricity minister
There have been mixed reactions to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s two major announcements in his 2023 State of the Nation Address.
Speaking on Thursday, Ramaphosa said a national state of disaster would take immediate effect, and a minister of electricity in the presidency would be appointed soon.
While government ministers rallied around the president, opposition parties rejected Ramaphosa’s solutions to the crippling power crisis.
“I think South Africans have PTSD from the last time there was a state of disaster to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, where we saw essentially a looting frenzy because of course now procurement processes were allowed to be subverted and the like,” said DA chief whip Siviwe Gwarube.
But co-operative governance minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma insisted the state of the disaster would assist the government to implement emergency measures to end the electricity crisis.
“It’s not about limiting any people’s rights. It’s about trying to address some of the issues that are not easy to address with the present legislation,” she said.
Political economist Lisa Thompson was of the view the state of the disaster would protect the country from complete economic collapse.
“At least we may be protected from complete economic disaster over the coming year….that’s sort of a national state of security blanket.”
Thompson said the key concern now was how quickly the country’s economic sectors would see some relief.
“President Ramaphosa and the presidency have basically taken all the darts that have been suggested across the energy sector and thrown them at the dartboard, hoping that something’s going to hit bullseye so we have a national state of disaster now and hopefully that will roll in action very quickly.”
The pending appointment of an electricity minister has drawn widespread criticism, with many questioning the wisdom of throwing another minister at the problem.
“We really don’t need a minister of electricity. We might end up with a minister of potholes, a minister of pit toilets. All we need is a minister that will deal with minerals and energy, and resolve the crisis around electricity,” said IFP leader, Velenkosini Hlabisa.
Big business also had divergent views on the president’s interventions.
Business Leadership SA indicated a minister dedicated to working day and night to solve the crisis was a step in the right direction.
But it questioned the state of disaster, citing “overreach and undermining of citizens’ rights that occurred during the COVID-19 state of disaster”, and “the massive corruption linked to Covid-related tenders”.
Business Unity SA (Busa), too, expressed ambivalence.
“We are a bit uncertain about what the role of a minister of electricity in the presidency will be, and why a state of disaster had to be called. This was not an unforeseen crisis. It is something we saw coming,” said Busa CEO, Cas Coovadia.
Organization Undoing Tax Abuse CEO, Wayne Duvenhage, said a new minister was bound to create confusion.
“Now we have three ministries – DPE [Department of Public Enterprises] looking after Eskom and DMRE [Department of Minerals and Energy] under Gwede Mantashe… and the third ministry of electricity is just throwing people at the problem. It’s not dealing with the issues of inefficiencies in those two offices.”
-EWN
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