Regard state of disaster plans with suspicion

PARLIAMENT'S Portfolio Committee on Public Enterprises this week welcomed an ANC proposal to declare the current load shedding problem a national state of disaster.

Declaring a state of disaster, according to the Constitution, entails assigning special powers to a national disaster management centre, enabling the executive to implement measures aimed at assisting and protecting the public, and providing relief.

This authority includes the allocation of state resources and funds.

South Africans have every right to be extremely suspicious and sceptical about this move. We were all there very recently, during the Coronavirus pandemic. Locked down in our homes, we were at the mercy of the National Coronavirus Command Council.

We waited for the president's “family meetings” in the evenings, anxious to hear where we may or may not go, the new dos and don’ts – tobacco and booze bans, limits on gatherings, restrictions on travel, mask wearing, vaccination and other protocols.

People left without income waited for their R350 SRD grants, employers and employees waited for their TERS payouts. We heard about a R500 billion Covid-19 Relief Fund. Where all that money went remains undisclosed to this day.

But auditor-general Tsakani Maluleke did point out that “government institutions did not operate in a co-ordinated manner, which resulted in widespread fraud in the personal protective equipment (PPE) spend”.

These fraud allegations reached all the way up to the president's office.

But because it was a “state of disaster”, the government enjoyed autocratic powers, with very little accountability and oversight from Parliament.

Although the pandemic presented the world with exceptionally challenging circumstances, it is fair to say that the government’s handling of the last state of disaster was far from adequate.

Now, the ANC says it wants to end load shedding by the end of the year by reprioritising an already stretched national budget and declaring another national state of disaster.

This would enable the government to speed up procurement and reallocate resources – for building and maintenance at Eskom, but also to provide relief to poor households and small and medium-sized enterprises.

It would also give corrupt officials licence to loot again. That is our biggest fear, and that is why South Africans must insist on accountability and stringent controls and audits – of the next state of disaster, but also the previous one.