South Africa declares national 'state of disaster' to tackle power crisis
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa
South Africa on Thursday (February 9) declared a national "state of disaster" over the crippling power shortages in the country. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said that the massive power outages posed an existential threat to the economy and social fabric.The electricity crunch has been years in the making, a product of delays in building new coal-fired power stations, corruption in coal-supply contracts, criminal sabotage and failures to ease up regulation to enable private providers to swiftly bring renewable energy on tap.
"The crisis has progressively evolved to affect every part of society. We must act to lessen the impact of the crisis on farmers, on small businesses, on our water infrastructure and our transport network," Ramaphosa said in his annual State of the Nation Address to parliament.
Eskom, the state electricity utility has been forced to implement the worst rolling blackouts on record. Manufacturing industry has been disrupted and businesses of all sizes are affected.
The power cuts are expected to reduce economic growth in Africa's most industrialised nation to just 0.3% this year.
Declaring a national state of disaster gives the government additional powers to respond to a crisis, including by permitting emergency procurement procedures with fewer bureaucratic delays and less oversight.
The legislation was used to enable health authorities to respond more swiftly to the COVID-19 pandemic, but some analysts doubt it will help the government expand power supply much quicker.
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Eskom said it would study the details of the declaration before commenting.
The biggest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, said it would challenge the "state of disaster" declaration in court, alleging Ramaphosa's party issued nonsensical regulations and abused procurement processes during the pandemic.
Ramaphosa also said on Thursday that the government was working on a mechanism for targeted basic income support for the most vulnerable, within fiscal constraints.
(With inputs from agencies)
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