The Black Business Council (BBC) has expressed excitement over the ANC's proposal to treat the energy crisis as a state of disaster but warned that shortcomings exposed during the war against Covid-19 be addressed.
Carrington Tlale, the BBC deputy chair of the infrastructure portfolio committee, said proposal of a state of disaster meant that the state would be able to procure goods and services much quicker and without going through the usual red tape.
“It also highlights who is willing and not willing to support the measures and those who don’t. We have waited too long [for an intervention]. SA is losing R4bn a day due to load shedding. We are not growing at all.
“We have to keep each other honest. We need to have proper monitoring and evaluation. We need to ensure that whatever is procured ends up where it should. We saw during the pandemic how some of the money did not benefit the country at all.”
Tlale said unlike with most of the goods that needed to be procured during Covid, such as protective personal equipment and sanitisers, the energy sector was well-regulated and the pricing model was expected to be a lot more predictable.
Tlale said while environmental concerns were genuine, it was important that there was a balance between those and the socio-economic needs.
“If we have a burning country, tyres burning everywhere, you will not have a country and you will have emissions. You will have smouldering anger, helplessness and destruction.
“We cannot have a situation where people who don’t even stay in the country dictate what happens here. Even in Europe they will do everything that is in the best interest of their countries. We have seen some parts of Europe recommissioning some of their oldest coal powered stations because they understand that they need to claw-back what they have lost,” said Tlale.
While giving feedback yesterday on the ANC's lekgotla recommendations from the weekend, ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula said there were billions of rand allocated to government departments and municipalities returned unspent at the end of a financial year which could be used towards efforts to turn around Eskom. Eskom is sitting with a R400bn debt.
Mbalula, who was elaborating on the announcement made by President Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday night, said the thinking was that a disaster declaration would expedite resolving the load shedding crisis.
“Declaring a state of disaster will help us move with speed. The target of getting this [ending load shedding] done and dusted by the end of the year can even move faster if we’ve got all hands on deck, address issues of procurement, mobilise resources where they are needed for intervention, particularly when it comes to maintenance.
“Then we’ve got to have people with capacity, engineering and all of that, to advise the command centre. We’ll agree for a very long time we’ve been told a story that’s really illusive around dealing and doing away with load shedding. The reports sometimes are contradictory, and we can’t speak like we’re experts.
“We didn't speak like we were experts during the time of Covid-19. We had a team of experts under the health department who were telling and educating us about the virus, not just a group of politicians who came together and defined themselves as theologists.
"Our response to Covid-19 was scientifically driven, so our response to dealing with load shedding must be scientific and by practitioners,” Mbalula said.
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