Nothing to add: Presidency on lifting of energy state of disaster and Eskom exemption

The Presidency will not be drawn on commenting on the lifting of the national state of disaster, barely three months after President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement.  

“We are not going to comment further than the communication that's been issued on both matters,” said Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya on Wednesday.  

In his state of the nation address in February, Ramaphosa declared a state of disaster to manage rolling blackouts. “The state of disaster will enable us to provide practical measures that we need to take to support businesses in the food production, storage and retail supply chain, including for the roll-out of generators, solar panels and uninterrupted power supply,” he said.

Where technically possible, he said the critical infrastructure such as hospitals and water-treatment plants would be exempted from load-shedding, “And it will enable us to accelerate energy projects and limit regulatory requirements while maintaining rigorous environmental protections, procurement principles and technical standards.”  

The Auditor-General (AG) was tasked with conducting real-time audits to monitor expenditure, similar to the one conducted during the Covid-19 pandemic. AG Tsakani Maluleke reportedly told parliament’s standing committee on the Auditor-General last month that it was “early days”.  

She was quoted as saying: “We welcome the opportunity to still serve as an independent assurance provider to government and still continuing to build confidence in the public to protect resources, limiting leakages and ensuring that resources that are allocated are spent in the best way possible for the purpose in which they were intended. It is still early days in the journey for now.” 

Magwenya would also not comment on the announcement by finance minister Enoch Godongwana on Wednesday morning to temporarily withdraw the gazetted exemption it awarded to Eskom from declaring irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure — pending consultation with the AG. 

SowetanLIVE's sister publication TimesLIVE reported that Godongwana told a joint meeting of five parliamentary committees that the Treasury intended to tighten the “checks and balances” for corruption.  

The Treasury took the decision to withdraw the gazette after a meeting with Maluleke on Tuesday and having taken into account public outrage about the matter. 

“There were comments by the AG which have got to be part of the framing of the gazette and in the light of those comments and comments by the public, we have decided to withdraw the gazette for now and take these comments into account.” 

Godongwana said they would consult the AG and the auditors of Eskom, Deloitte, to ensure the framing of the gazette is proper and checks and balances for corruption are tightened. 

TimesLIVE