FIKILE-NTSIKELELO MOYA | True state of disaster we have is speed, quality of decision-making

I am grateful that someone has publicly mentioned that we are in a state of disaster with regards  to our energy needs and supply. With everything that has gone on, it would have been difficult to arrive at the conclusion that those managing the state see this as a disastrous set of circumstances.

SA has a peculiar way of handling what it describes as “urgent”, as one would expect that the energy crisis would be handled. Other than debating whether the state should declare the state of disaster, very little has been done since. So much for a state of disaster.

Then this week, it emerged that power utility Eskom had finally decided to formally recruit someone to become its next CEO. This is for a position that we knew by mid-December when Andre de Ruyter announced he would be leaving his post by the end of March.

Second week into February, Eskom has finally put together a specification for who should replace him. Closing date for applications is February 27.

So by early March, De Ruyter’s final month in charge of the utility, recruiters will be sifting through CVs and deciding who should make it to the shortlist. After the recruitment process, we will have to wait for the relevant cabinet minister to make a recommendation and then the president to make the final endorsement.

Assuming such rare and high quality skills are not sitting and waiting for the employment agency they submitted their CV to, to call them, there is very little chance that De Ruyter’s replacement will be in office on April or even May 1.

Yet this is a situation we are required to believe that it is being treated as something deserving of an amendment to the constitution, giving the state extraordinary powers to certain cabinet ministers to do what they ordinarily would not be allowed to do as long as they believe it is in the best interest of the country at the time.

If I were a cynic – thankfully I am not – I would start to wonder if the talk about treating the energy crisis as a state of disaster is not just some public relations to make the public believe that the government or the governing party is “doing something” about rolling blackouts.

Nothing suggests that other than calling it an energy crisis requiring a state of disaster to be declared, there is very little that this government is doing to treat the thing as a crisis.

If the state was as serious about the energy crisis as it suggests then the day job spec for the next Eskom CEO would not have had to wait for everyone to return from their Christmas holidays before it is put together.

Loadshedding’s impact on the economy, to jobs, lives and livelihoods, to the country’s reputation as tourist destination, to say nothing about interpersonal relationships that have gone permanently south because someone got tired of their ever grumpy partner becoming even grumpier because of blackouts, is well recorded.

Given all this, one would have thought that the drive to get a new CEO for one of the most important jobs in SA would have started the day after the resignation was announced.

Not in SA. It had to wait for nearly two months.

So much for treating the energy crisis as something deserving a state of disaster.

Mind you, nobody is saying that President Cyril Ramaphosa must run like a headless chicken making statements and appointments he has not thought of carefully.

That said, Ramaphosa must start treating certain things as urgent.

We can forgive him for taking 10 months to replace Ayanda Dlodlo, who resigned as public service and administration minister in April last year.

We might even be willing to stomach and even wonder how ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula is able to juggle two important jobs, one of being a cabinet minister and another of being the de facto CEO of the governing party.

We may be willing to ignore that what seems like a simple task of thanking deputy president David Mabuza for his role in the state and wishing him well in his future endeavours, is becoming a dragged out process akin to former president Jacob Zuma trying to avoid prosecution or appearing before a judicial commission.

Makes one conclude that the true state of disaster we have is the pace and quality of decision-making and the effects thereof.