New state of disaster faces immediate backlash – and two legal challenges
The new state of disaster declared by president Cyril Ramaphosa to tackle load shedding and the ongoing energy crisis in South Africa already faces two legal challenges.
Following the president’s State of the Nation Address on Thursday evening (9 February) in which he announced the declaration, opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, said it had already consulted its legal team to challenge the policy in court.
The DA previously pushed for and supported the declaration of a state of disaster over the energy crisis, but wanted it to be “ring-fenced”. The party argues that the disaster declared by Ramaphosa is too broad and open to abuse.
“In the absence of any real solutions to the permanent load shedding crisis created by the ANC, President Cyril Ramaphosa, during his SONA address, desperately grasped at the straw of a sweeping National State of Disaster,” said DA leader John Steenhuisen.
“The DA can confirm that we have already briefed our lawyers to challenge the announcement in court.”
In a separate announcement, trade union Solidarity said it would also be launching legal action against the declaration, echoing many of the same sentiments.
“Poor central control landed us in this crisis. Such poor control in even more measures will not get us out of the crisis,” said Solidarity chief executive, Dirk Hermann.
“Everything the president announced in the State of the Nation Address can already be implemented by using existing legislation. The harsh reality is that all the instruments to solve the crisis are already at the president’s disposal – he simply chooses not to use them. Therefore, a state of disaster is irrational and unnecessary and leaves Solidarity with no option but to litigate.”
Both the DA and Solidarity are of the view that the national state of disaster will simply be used by the government to abuse state resources, and that the country is likely to face a barrage of looting as was seen during the Covid crisis, where politically connected businesses and politically exposed persons robbed the state of billions of rands in relief funds.
“We dare not allow a repeat of the government’s abuse of power that occurred during the Covid-19 state of disaster. The decision-making that led to a ban on warm chicken meals and flip-flops now wants to take decisions about the energy crisis without proper oversight.
“A state of disaster will not end the energy crisis any faster, but it opens the door to major abuse once again,” Hermann said. “This is quite simply a lose-lose situation.”
President Ramaphosa attempted to get ahead of fears that the state of disaster would be abused by specifying in his address that the Auditor General would be involved in keeping funds and how they are spent in check.
However, it should be noted that the Auditor General’s office has for years made findings and recommendations that various arms of government clean up their act, which has, so far, been disregarded and generally ignored – particularly by municipalities.
Adding to the oversight of the energy crisis, the president said that he would also be establishing a new minister within the presidency to focus exclusively on the crisis.
According to Steenhuisen, however, this move adds a third minister “to the other two already getting in the way of a solution to the energy crisis”.
“Instead of decentralising control and trusting in the market mechanism, Ramaphosa has opted to centralise even more power in his own Super Presidency – which lacks democratic oversight mechanisms, with Parliament lying in ruins and the Presidency having no portfolio committee to oversee it,” he said.
“More centralisation and less accountability is exactly the opposite of what South Africa urgently needs right now.”
The DA leader said that a state of disaster is a road well-travelled by the country and is something it cannot afford to tread again. He said that the party’s legal action will join litigation already underway challenging the Disaster Management Act as a whole.
“The DA is already in court to declare the Disaster Management Act unconstitutional and we will now do the same to prevent the ANC looting frenzy that will follow Ramaphosa’s dangerous and desperate announcement like night follows day,” he said.
Read: South Africa declares a national state of disaster over load shedding
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