President Cyril Ramaphosa has defended the declaration of the National State of Disaster over the country’s electricity crisis.
The president has been criticised by the Democratic Alliance (DA) for the move saying it will test the matter in court.
The DA says the declaration will enable corruption.
During his State of the Nation Address last night, Ramaphosa said a national State of Disaster and the appointment of a minister of electricity would ensure that urgent work is done to end load shedding.
Addressing the media a short while ago in Cape Town, the president gave his assurance that there would be no looting of funds meant to deal with the crisis.
“Their criticism is misguided. We’re seeking to address the electricity crisis and it’s quite interesting that they called for a State of Disaster and now that we’ve declared it, they’re opposed to it, for a very strange reason that there’s going to be looting. There’s just going to be a process of ensuring that we deal with the crisis and we will be following all the processes, the rules and regulations and to speed up the process of enabling Eskom to be able to deal with the challenges of generation and transmission,” says Ramaphosa.
SONA 2023 | Ramaphosa addresses criticism of measures announced to tackle energy crisis:
![[File Image] National Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula during a hybrid media briefing on preparations to host 2022 State of the Nation Address.](https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Nosiviwe-GCIS-120x86.jpg)
