The declaration of a National State of Disaster due to the nation’s energy situation will be contested in court by the DA.
President Cyril Ramaphosa declared the issue a national state of calamity during the State of the Nation Address on Thursday in order to facilitate the prompt mobilization of resources to address the terrible impact of rolling blackouts.
The appointment of a specialized ministry of electricity, which would be under the Office of the Presidency and exclusively responsible for tackling the energy problem, was one of the dramatic measures the president claimed his administration would take.
John Steenhuisen, the head of the DA, claims that this is another another way for the ANC-led government to steal money and resources from the state. He said that following the alleged plundering that shook the government during the Covid-19 state of disaster period, the nation cannot afford to be exposed to further corruption.
According to Steenhuisen, he has already informed his attorneys that he intends to take this case to court, like he did with the epidemic.
“SA has traveled this path before. We saw severe weaknesses in the National State of Disaster Act during the Covid-19 catastrophe, which gives the ANC unrestricted authority to plunder without any legislative supervision. The DA has already filed a lawsuit against the Disaster Management Act, and we will follow suit to stop the ANC looting frenzy that will inevitably follow Ramaphosa’s risky and desperate pronouncement.
“The level of stealing and craziness we witnessed during the COVID-19 outbreak is just too much for our nation to bear. Last time, Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who is once again in charge of managing the ANC-caused loadshedding disaster, was able to issue absurd and economically damaging regulations that were completely unrelated to Covid-19, such as banning everything from cooked chicken to open-toed shoes and alcohol,” he said.
According to Steenhuisen, the ANC would be able to misuse procurement procedures by establishing what he called “nonsensical laws that have nothing to do with the energy problem” if a state of calamity is declared over the energy crisis.
“Ramaphosa and the ANC have convincingly shown that they lack the capacity to resolve the many problems they brought about. Ramaphosa’s record as having presided over five wholly squandered years in addition to the nine under his ANC predecessor is now set in stone.
“Cyril Ramaphosa has been overrun by history. He was a failure. It is now up to the people of SA to stop the decades-long downfall that the ANC has manufactured in our nation. The ANC must be defeated in the next election in order to make room for a new DA-led administration, according to Steenhuisen.
According to the DA, the cost to taxpayers of appointing a new minister to address the electrical problem has already been assessed.
In light of the possibility that a deputy minister would also need to be appointed, the cost of the appointment of a new minister, according to DA spokesperson for public service and administration Leon Schreiber, is around R37 million annually.
“To make matters worse, Ramaphosa has obviously decided to take advantage of the load-shedding issue to offer more lucrative positions to ineffective cadres. After the announcement, the DA used the Ministerial Handbook to estimate the minimum cost to the taxpayer that this new ministry will incur. They did this under the premise that Ramaphosa would also appoint a Deputy Minister of ANC Loadshedding because that is his preferred way of distributing patronage.
“This ministry will add at least R37m per year to the bill that taxpayers already pay for ANC ministers and their cadres, in addition to the fact that it will only add another layer of bureaucracy and spark new turf battles between the Minister of ANC loadshedding, the Minister of Energy, and the Minister of Public Enterprises,” said Schreiber.
Schreiber’s figures took into consideration expenses like power bills, the ministers’ salaries, VIP security, expensive cars, new cabinet members, and official housing.
“The first part of this expenditure is VIP protection, which runs R8 million a year. The minister’s annual remuneration is R2.4 million, followed by the deputy minister’s salary of R2 million. Not to mention the four luxurious automobiles (two for the minister and two for the deputy) that will be bought with public money and cost a total of R3.2 million. (The limit on car expenses has been covertly raised to R800,000 per vehicle by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana.)
These new Cabinet members would also get free water and energy at each of their two official properties, one in Pretoria and one in Cape Town, for a total of R240,000, up to a maximum cost of R60,000 per year, per property.
The positions for cadres in the minister’s and deputy minister’s private offices follow. According to the Handbook, each minister is now allowed to hire 11 staff in their private office, while the deputy minister is allowed to employ seven. Over R8.5 million will be spent on personnel in the new minister’s office each year, while over R4.5 million will be spent on staff in the deputy minister’s office.
The DA, according to Schreiber, opposes the president’s proposal to create a new category at the ministry level.
The DA condemns Ramaphosa’s exploitation of the ANC-caused energy crisis as a pretext to give his fellow comrades further favors. We have previously filed a complaint with the Public Protector about the Ministerial Handbook due to what seems to be the absence of a legislation that mandates its establishment.
The fact that Ramaphosa can step up and deliver a speech that immediately costs taxpayers tens of millions of rands without any legislative supervision or cost assessment at all “confirms that the manual is nothing more than an unlawful weapon to enhance ANC corruption,” he added.
»Democratic Alliance opposes the ANC’s “looting” during the state of emergency«