![]() ![]() ![]() Visit Daily Maverick’s home page for more news, analysis and investigations Put differently, the problem is linked to systemic governance failures over many years – something that cannot be fixed by declaring a State of Disaster and taking a few legal shortcuts. In the case of Eskom, the problem is not that the government lacks the legal power to fix the problem, but rather that it has for many years lacked the political will to do so, and that it has not done its job to ensure that Eskom is run competently and free of serious corruption. I would argue that the Act was not meant to address the kind of systemic governance failures that caused the ongoing energy crisis and makes it close to impossible to fix it, but rather to deal with unforeseen situations that could not be dealt with effectively by relying on the existing legislation. ![]() This view is bolstered by the fact that section 2(1)(b) of the Act makes clear that the Act does not apply to situations where the “disaster” can be “dealt with effectively in terms of other national legislation aimed at reducing the risk, and addressing the consequences of an occurrences of that nature”. While this definition is quite broad, and on a generous reading may thus apply to the Eskom crisis, reading the Act holistically, it is at best unclear whether it applies to a situation where the “disruption of the life of the community” was caused by many years of government mismanagement, corruption and incompetence and could only be fixed by addressing government mismanagement, corruption and incompetence. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |