WeeklySA_AdminRULING: Minister must ensure generators and alternate energy supplies are secured to prevent power cuts…
By Lehlohonolo Lehana
The North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria has ruled that all hospitals, clinics, schools and police stations should be spared from electricity disruptions.
In a judgment delivered today, the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, ordered the Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan to “take all reasonable steps within 60 days” to make sure there is sufficient electricity supply to the facilities.
Gordhan must also ensure that generators and other alternate energy supplies are secured to prevent power cuts. The situation at hospitals was plainly untenable, with those who had generators having to take money from fuel out of their limited budgets for medicines and salaries, and the same applied to public schools and police stations, the judgment said.
“The police stations and schools are even worse off, they simply close or shut down during load-shedding.” Judge Norman Davis — on behalf of a full bench – said government had been warned, and had accepted, that it would run out of generating capacity in 2008.
In “the 15 years since then, [it] has failed to remedy the situation.” Davis said, while the government argued it had plans in place to deal with load-shedding, these were “uncertain” and would not solve “the urgent needs of the installations mentioned in [the] applicants’ application”.
The United Democratic Movement (UDM) and 18 other litigants approached the court in a bid to compel the authorities to exempt essential services like public health institutions and schools, among others, from loadshedding.
They also applied to have small businesses that deal in perishable goods, and cellphone networks to be exempted from rolling blackouts.
The applicants, in part B, were also seeking an order holding President Cyril Ramaphosa, as head of the national executive, legally responsible for the human cost of loadshedding.
The case’s respondents included the Presidency, the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa), the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE), the department of Mineral Resources and Energy, (DMRE), and the Eskom management and board.
Eskom had contended that it would be technically impossible to isolate and exclude some buildings from load shedding, given how embedded they were in Eskom’s transmission and distribution networks, and that they shared distribution lines with thousands of other customers.
Turning to Eskom’s submission that some public institutions were so embedded in a surrounding power network that exempting them would mean exempting a whole suburb or town, the court said the minister would then have to make another plan to keep the lights on.
“Individual solutions therefore need to be devised in instances where the DPE minister cannot secure exemptions, such as the provision of generators or alternate energy supplies.”
The judgment had also found that there had been repeated breaches by the state of its Constitutional and statutory duties and that these breaches infringe citizens’ rights to healthcare, security and education.
The bench found that there was an apprehension of irreparable harm to the right to life, among others. Judgment was reserved on Part B of the case.
The court gave short shrift to Ramaphosa’s submission that the applicants need not have come to court, but could have, and still should, raise their concerns in parliament.
RAMAPHOSA BEEFS UP ESKOM POWER STATIONS SECURITY
SIEGE: More SANDF members deployed to protect the facilities amid accelerated loadshedding and economic damage concerns…
By Lehlohonolo Lehana
President Cyril Ramaphosa has authorised the deployment of 800 South African National Defence Force members to assist police and Eskom security in dealing with criminal elements.
The SANDF would cooperate with the South African Police Service (SAPS) for “the prevention and combating of crime and maintenance and preservation of law and order in SA under Operation Prosper”, the Presidency said in a statement.
“Members of the SANDF employed will assist the South African Police Service in protecting Eskom power stations around the country where sabotage, theft and other crimes may threaten the functioning of power stations and the supply of electricity.”
The deployment is from April 17 to October 17 this year. Previously, 2 700 members of the SANDF were employed to assist the SAPS in protecting Eskom power stations under Operation Prosper from March 17 2023 to April 17 this year.
“The current employment is authorised in accordance with the provisions of Section 201(2) (a) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996,” said the Presidency, adding the state expected incur expenses totalling nearly R 147 million.
Eskom is under siege by criminals, from low-level opportunistic and petty thieves to complex and highly organised syndicates. The list of criminal activities it has had to suffer is documented and perennial, with coal theft, diesel theft, contract exploitation, high-level corruption and even threats of violence adding to the stresses.
As criminals continue their siege, South Africa has been thrust into the worst-ever levels of load shedding as the 15-year power crisis deepens.
Load shedding has been implemented on a near-permanent basis since September 2022, and has hit the country at high stages every day in 2023 so far. – www.fullview.co.za
Published on the 97th Edition
