ANC proposes state of disaster to address power cuts

The ANC has proposed government declare a state of disaster due to the ongoing energy crisis, President Cyril Ramaphosa said.

While delivering the closing remarks during the party’s two-day NEC lekgotla held in Kempton Park on Monday, Ramaphosa said one of the proposal that came from party leaders was to declare a state of disaster.

This would then free up funds for government to roll out some of its plans to fix the energy crisis which has plunged the country into darkness on most days.

Load shedding dominated much of the discussions during the lekgotla, with Ramaphosa stating that the ANC and its deployees in government were dealing with the crisis the urgency it deserved.

“There was talk about a declaration of a national state of disaster like we did when we faced Covid-19 and there’s broad agreement we should move in that direction.

“Work is already underway within government to establish whether the legal requirements for the declaration for a national state of disaster are met and what immediate actions we’d need to undertake to resolve load shedding within the framework of the national state of disaster. This matter will receive urgent attention and will be discussed fully at the government lekgotla that’s going to take place in the next few days.

“It was observed it would be necessary to have it as it would give us instruments to face the challenges our nation faces,” he said.

Ramaphosa said during the discussions, the lekgotla agreed that energy security was key to the country’s national interest, its sovereignty and national security.

“Without energy we will not be able to achieve our other development priorities.

“There is a clear objective from the ANC to end load shedding within a much shorter timeframe than what’s projected. A set of actions has been set out to achieve that objective,” he said.

The outcomes of the NEC lekgotla will give a line of march for a similar cabinet gathering which will inform government’s priorities for the year and feed into Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address on February 9.

On Sunday, during closed meetings, both public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan and energy and mineral resources minister Gwede Mantashe made presentations outlining plans to fast-track interventions to end the electricity crisis.

Gordhan said the goal was to end load shedding by early 2024 – the year political parties will hit the campaign trail for elections at a national and provincial level. He said urgent action needed to be taken to fix Eskom, stabilise the system and add new capacity to the grid.

He said procurement of emergency power by next month, importing additional power from neighbouring countries and improving power stations performance were some of the short-term measures.