A legal showdown is on the cards with some political formations and civil society organisations threatening to take the government to court if President Cyril Ramaphosa declares a national state of disaster at Eskom in his State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Thursday.
The organisations, including NUMSA, the UDM, SAFTU, BOSA and HAITU, briefed the media on their rejection of a state of disaster.
The country has been losing billions daily over the rolling blackouts, but the formations believe a national state of disaster will make way for corruption and for the privatisation of Eskom.
A multi-stakeholder group that believes efforts around the declaration of a national state of disaster over Eskom will be illegal, unconstitutional and misdirected.
“Clearly President Cyril Ramaphosa is poised and positioning the whole nation, pulling a wool in their eyes that come Thursday dusting SONA they want to declare this self-created crisis as a national disaster and if they do that, they will manipulate the grid and hand over the country to the world bank. We will stop at nothing. If they go ahead on Thursday we will run to court on Friday,” says NUMSA general secretary, Irvin Jim.
They want other solutions explored outside of the national state of disaster.
“I think the easiest solution is we’ve got more than two well-experienced engineers working with us for years. They know how to fix Eskom. One is Matshela Koko, we’ve got Jacob Maroga but we should focus on coal fleet which is what can give us sustainable reliable energy,” Jim adds.
The health and allied workers Union says lives are lost daily as the load shedding persists. Health facilities have been under strain and HAITU has joined a multi-stakeholder court case to push for all hospitals and clinics in the country to be exempted from load shedding.
“We are calling on the government to say all health care facilities must have generators. It’s a process to procure diesel. We are saying the national health department must release the numbers of all people dying, and update us on a daily basis like during Covid. We need the numbers as we can’t support everyone on a ventilator when the power goes off, you need to choose who you are saving,” says HAITU Gauteng chairperson, Bafana Tshabalala.
The formation wants Andre de Ruyter gone as a matter of urgency. They’ve also called for ministers fit for purpose to be appointed at State-owned entities.
“The way President Cyril Ramaphosa is so arrogant in pursuing this interest, I wouldn’t be surprised if on Thursday Gwede Mantashe is thrown away and you have both DMRE and Public Enterprise being put together and Pravin Gordhan is leading the ministry or the person there is likely to be a puppet of the privatisation agenda,” Tshabalala explains.
It remains to be seen if the president will announce a national state of disaster in his SONA with the organisation saying they will heighten their efforts including a shutdown if they don’t get joy from the courts on this.
The North Gauteng High Court will hear a multi-stakeholder court action against the government and Eskom on load shedding on the 28th of this month, but these organisations have vowed to go to court again, this time on an urgent basis on Friday, to prevent a national state of disaster from being declared.
They maintain there are solutions to the power crisis that do not have to include the declaration of a national state of disaster.
