Committee welcomes state of disaster, but opposition have reservations

WHILE Parliament’s portfolio committee on public enterprises has welcomed the proposal to declare the ongoing rolling load shedding a state of national disaster to assist Eskom to manage the energy crisis, opposition members of the committee have reservations.

Committee chairperson Khaya Magaxa (ANC) shared the committee’s view during a briefing from the department on progress made in addressing the auditor-general’s audit findings with respect to the department and its associated state-owned companies.

However, in a separate statement committee member and GOOD Party MP Brett Herron described the electricity state of disaster as: “theatre without substance.”

Herron said: “The ANC’s proposal to declare an electricity State of Disaster reflects its desperation to appear to be doing something, anything, to create the impression that it is nominally in control.”

He said the reality was that declaring a disaster would not miraculously enable Eskom to manage the country’s power stations and stop load-shedding, as to do that requires engineering and management skills.

“The idea that a state of disaster will provide the government with a tool to speed up the procurement of energy, for example, the procurement of power ships, sounds plausible, but won’t stop the implementation of critical decisions being delayed through court challenges.”

He said there were provisions in the Public Finance Management Act that provided for access to resources in times of crisis, along with provision for deviations in procurement legislation if and where necessary.

“Accessing this emergency funding doesn’t depend on our resorting to another hazardous state of disaster.”

Fellow committee member and DA Mineral Resources and Energy spokesperson Kevin Mileham also issued a statement in which he said his party would take steps to ensure that such a declaration had in-built safeguards to prevent executive overreach and stop corruption.

Mileham said these measures would be taken to “prevent the feeding frenzy that characterised PPE procurement by ANC cadres and their families during the Covid-19 state of disaster.”

Mileham said the DA would fight to ensure that any state of disaster was monitored by a special inspector-general to prevent the looting of any emergency funding that may be set aside to address the crisis.

He demanded that there be a live and public National Treasury record that will track all tenders, procurement contracts and successful bidders and that a parliamentary ad-hoc committee be set up to oversee the implementation of the state of disaster.

Members of the committee expressed concern about under-performance at state-owned companies and the excessive amounts reported by the auditor-general on fruitless and wasteful expenditure.

Regarding the SOC Shareholder management Bill, the department has drafted a National State Enterprises Bill that aims to provide a mechanism for the state to enhance the operational efficiency of its SOCs to achieve its developmental objectives.