A section of South Africa’s labour movement has threatened to go to court in a bid to interdict the government from declaring a National State of Disaster on Eskom.
This comes as President Cyril Ramaphosa, in his State of the Nation Address (Sona) today, is expected to announce the decision of the Cabinet Lekgotla.
The move to declare a National State of Disaster on the ongoing energy crisis was first proposed at the ANC Lekgotla two weeks ago, but has received significant pushback from opposition parties and NGOs.
The National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa), yesterday said the plans to declare a disaster on the current rolling blackouts was to create conditions of privatising the country’s energy.
In a media briefing yesterday, Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim said the ongoing rolling power cuts were a crisis, which had been deliberately imposed by Ramaphosa’s leadership in order to connect more Independent Power Producers into the grid for the sole intention of privatising energy provision.
“We regard this intention of President Cyril Ramaphosa to declare these rolling blackouts as a cheap ploy, which we will challenge and expose for what they are, as we affirm that there is no legal basis for such a declaration,” Jim said.
“It is the abuse of power undermining of democracy, it’s history seeking to repeat itself, we went through this during the dark days of apartheid from the racist apartheid regime, where power corrupts and corrupts absolutely.
“If he dare move ahead and pull the trigger in the State of the Nation Address he will leave us with no choice but to approach a court of law to interdict such a backward, disastrous decision which constitutes an attack to democracy, which many people died for.”
Numsa is part of a number of organisations which have filed urgent court papers at the North Gauteng High Court to stop the rolling blackouts due to their detrimental impact on health, the economy and jobs.
The multi-party court action includes the UDM, BuildOneSA, the Health and Allied Indaba Trade Union, the Soweto Action Committee, IFP, ActionSA, and SA Federation of Trade Unions, small businesses, political parties and other trade unions.
Meanwhile, the Health and Allied Workers Indaba Trade Union (Haitu) joined Numsa at the briefing, demanding that government compensate families for unnecessary deaths caused by loadshedding.
Haitu Gauteng provincial chairperson Bafana Tshabalala said they were getting reports from nurses on the ground, regarding the shocking conditions that they say they were forced to endure because of water and power shortages.
Tshabalala said nurses and doctors were forced to make terrible choices over who lives and dies, simply because of the power cuts, and the ventilators cut out; there were simply not enough staff to resuscitate all the patients who depended on life saving equipment.
“We have noted with keen interest how this selfish government has responded to business by promising to compensate them for their financial losses caused by loadshedding,” Tshabalala said.
“Our government always prioritises business over black lives. We demand that the state must compensate the families of the working class for the deaths of their loved ones, who died needlessly because of power cuts.”
Ramaphosa this week reassured investors that South Africa’s challenges were being addressed, including secure supply of electricity, regulatory reform and making the economy attractive to investors.
Oxford Economics head of macroeconomics, Jacques Nel said investors were not expecting much from Ramaphosa seeing that many of his promises from his previous Sona remained unfulfilled.
“Expectations are once again low, and the worsening energy crisis has soured the national mood, putting added pressure on South Africa’s president to deliver something credible,” Nel said.
“With so many of last year’s promises unfulfilled, this will be no easy task.”
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