The DA is set to challenge the declaration of a National State of Disaster on the country’s energy crisis in court.
During the State of the Nation Address on Thursday, President Cyril Ramaphosa declared the crisis a national state of disaster to enable the urgent mobilisation of resources to tackle the disastrous effect of rolling blackouts.
Among other drastic steps that the president said his government would embark on was to appoint a dedicated ministry of electricity, which will be in the Office of the Presidency solely responsible for resolving the energy crisis.
According to DA leader John Steenhuisen, this is another method for the ANC-led government to loot state funds and resources. He said the country cannot afford to be subjected to another round of corruption after the alleged looting which rocked the government during the Covid-19 state of disaster epoch.
Steenhuisen said he has already notified his lawyers of his intention to challenge this matter in court as he did with the pandemic.
“SA has been down this road before. During the Covid-19 disaster, we saw fatal flaws in the National State of Disaster legislation, which allows the ANC unfettered power to loot without any parliamentary oversight. 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.
“Our country simply cannot survive another round of the looting and irrationality we saw during the Covid-19 pandemic. Last time around, the lack of accountability under the National State of Disaster enabled Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma – who is again in charge of managing the ANC-made loadshedding disaster – to issue nonsensical and economically destructive regulations that were entirely disconnected from Covid-19, including banning everything from cooked chicken to open-toed shoes and alcohol,” he said.
Steenhuisen is arguing that the declaration of a state of disaster in the issue of energy crisis will not help but enable the ANC to abuse procurement processes by issuing what he referred to as “nonsensical regulations that have nothing to do with the energy crisis”.
“Ramaphosa and the ANC have conclusively demonstrated that they do not have the ability to fix the multiple crises they created. Ramaphosa’s legacy is now cast in stone, as having presided over five utterly wasted years to add to the nine under his ANC predecessor.
“History has overtaken Cyril Ramaphosa. He has failed. It is now time for the people of SA to save our country from decades of ANC-engineered decline. The only way to do that is by voting the ANC out at next year’s election, in favour of a new DA-led government,” Steenhuisen said.
The DA says it has already calculated the cost to taxpayers for appointing a new minister to deal with the electricity crisis.
According to DA representative for public service and administration Leon Schreiber, the appointment of a new minister will cost taxpayers approximately R37m per year, he said, considering that there might also be a need to appoint a deputy minister.
“To add insult to injury, Ramaphosa has clearly chosen to abuse the loadshedding crisis to create more cushy jobs for useless cadres. Following the announcement, the DA has used the Ministerial Handbook to calculate the minimum cost to taxpayer that this new ministry will entail, working on the assumption that Ramaphosa will also appoint a Deputy Minister of ANC Loadshedding as this is his preferred method of spreading around patronage.
“In addition to the fact that this ministry will only create a new layer of bureaucracy and ignite further turf wars between the Minister of ANC loadshedding, the Minister of Energy and the Minister of Public Enterprises, it will also add at least R37m per year to the bill that taxpayers already foot for ANC ministers and their cadres,” said Schreiber.
In his calculations, Schreiber accounted for components such as the ministers’ salary, VIP protection, luxury vehicles, new cabinet members, and official residence as well as utility bills.
“The first component of this cost is VIP protection at a cost of R8m per year. Then comes the salary of the minister, which is R2.4m per year, and the deputy minister’s salary at a cool R2m. And don’t forget the four luxury vehicles (two for the minister and two for the deputy) that will be purchased using taxpayer money, at a combined cost of R3.2m. (Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana has quietly increased the cap on vehicle costs to R800,000 each).
“These new Cabinet cadres will, of course, also get free water and electricity at each of their two official residences (one in Pretoria and one in Cape Town) up to a maximum cost of R60,000 per year, per house – for a total of R240,000.
“Then comes the jobs for cadres in the private offices of the minister and deputy minister. The Handbook currently entitles every minister to employ 11 people in their private office, while the deputy minister gets seven. The staff employed in the office of the new minister will cost over R8.5m per year, while the deputy minister’s office will cost over R4.5m per year.
Schreiber said the DA rejects the president’s resolution to add a new category in the ministry level.
“The DA rejects Ramaphosa’s abuse of the ANC-made electricity crisis as an opportunity to spread more patronage to his fellow cadres. We have already reported the Ministerial Handbook to the Public Protector over the apparent fact that there is no law on the books that provides for its existence.
“That Ramaphosa can stand up and make a speech that instantly costs taxpayers tens of millions of rand without any parliamentary oversight or cost calculation whatsoever, confirms that the handbook is nothing more than an illegal tool to further ANC corruption,” he said.
Also read: SONA: state of disaster declared over SA’s energy crisis
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