AfriForum ready to take legal action against intended state of disaster

14 July 2022

The civil rights organisation AfriForum is ready to approach the court on an urgent basis, should the government decide to reinstate a state of disaster. According to media reports, President Cyril Ramaphosa is apparently considering announcing a state of emergency, as part of his government’s action plan to end load shedding.

According to AfriForum, the government has repeatedly proven in the past few years that it cannot be trusted with the extensive forces that a state of disaster gives it and this state of disaster will probably be abused just like the Covid-19 state of disaster to enrich politicians, handing out unlawful/unfair tenders and escaping parliamentary scrutiny.

“It would appear that the Disaster Management Act has now become the government’s new favourite vehicle to facilitate and carry out corrupt activities. The law is clearly being abused and a ‘disaster’ caused by mismanagement certainly does not fall within the scope of the law,” says Ernst van Zyl, Campaign Officer for Strategy and Content at AfriForum.

“The fact that power outages have plagued South Africa for 14 years now due to the ANC’s maladministration, race obsession, corruption and clinging to Eskom as a power monopoly, is definitely a disaster. That is precisely why we cannot trust the government with extra powers, unless we want to add a second disaster to the power crisis,” concludes Van Zyl.

Issued by Chanté Kelder, Media Relations Officer, AfriForum, 14 July 2022