As a state, South Africa is a disaster. Just look around you. So, the ANC deciding it should declare a national state of disaster to tackle the ongoing collapse of our electricity grid seems, at first glance, to be stating the obvious.
As we learned from the previous national state of disaster declared in 2020 to cope with the Covid pandemic, such a move has far-reaching implications. We hope, this time around, we do not see our ANC comrades rallying to defend us from the threat, wearing their Cuban berets and energetically espousing “revolution”.
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Even this thick-skinned ruling party of ours must acknowledge – if only in private – that the Eskom crisis is a self-inflicted injury.
Yet, with the declaration of a state of disaster, the government will have access to the sort of powers which enabled it, last time around, to launch head-cracking violent campaigns against resistance – and to ban alcohol and cigarettes, not to mention outlawing the sale of open-toed shoes and cooked chicken.
Lest we forget… Behind that silliness, though, was the sort of opportunity – through the emergency relaxation of normal government procurement processes – for the cadres to get looting in earnest.
So, huge amounts of money, meant for personal protective equipment for health workers, simply evaporated.
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It seems clear the new emergency will enable the ANC – and specifically Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe – to push through the mega billion “powerships” as a stopgap measure.
No doubt there would be huge benefits for the party itself, similar to the commission it earned from the coal-fired power station projects.
As if to confirm the parlous state of affairs, Eskom announced stages 5 and 6 for the foreseeable future. It has got to the point we are no longer staring into the abyss, we have started tumbling headlong into it.
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