(File photo: Salam Habash/Unsplash)
“The lifting of the state of disaster regarding the electricity crisis is proof that the government is succumbing to civil pressure and hopefully realizing that a state of disaster is not necessary to solve the crisis.”
This is how AfriForum reacted after the state of disaster over the power crisis ended on Wednesday after just two months. Pres. In February, Cyril Ramaphosa announced the state of disaster in his state of the nation address. Among other things, the disaster regulations included exempting certain critical infrastructure services from load shedding.
According to the FF Plus, he already said with the declaration of the state of disaster that it is difficult to see how it can bring any solution to the Eskom crisis.
“This view has now been proven right,” said Dr. Pieter Groenewald, FF Plus leader, said. “One can rightly ask what has changed regarding the crisis and what has improved due to the state of disaster since its announcement on February 9.”
It is clear that the government wants to avoid a court case about the validity of the state of disaster because it realizes it is illegal, Groenewald believes.
Solidarity and the Organization against Tax Abuse (Outa) indicated that they would challenge the validity of the state of disaster in court. In legal documents on Wednesday, the government asked the two organizations to withdraw their court applications for the setting aside of the state of calamity.
“The only thing that has happened since the state of calamity about the power crisis was the announcement by the finance minister, Enoch Godongwana, about the exemption granted to Eskom regarding the reporting of irregular spending and everything that goes with it.
“The minister could have used the state of disaster to justify this and it is therefore instructive that this exemption was withdrawn concurrently with the lifting of the state of disaster.”
The DA said the lifting of the state of disaster was a victory for South Africans.
A national state of calamity under the guise of dealing with the load shedding crisis that the ANC has created is only going to empower the ANC to abuse procurement processes and issue nonsensical regulations that have nothing to do with the electricity crisis.
“The reality is that the ANC cannot correct the load-shedding crisis it has created.”
ActionSA also welcomed the lifting of the state of emergency. “This indicates that the ANC government recognizes that it will never solve South Africa’s ongoing electricity crisis,” said Herman Mashaba, leader of ActionSA.
“Two months since the state of calamity was imposed, the electricity situation has not changed. The only way to solve the electricity crisis is to allow private companies to generate electricity in an open market and adopt renewable energy sources.”
