National state of disaster regulations published on Tuesday allow government to grant exemptions from load-shedding “where technically feasible” to essential infrastructure — if these exemptions will not result in an increased risk of higher stages of load-shedding.

The regulations list “essential infrastructure” as health infrastructure, including military health facilities; water infrastructure, including water treatment plants; rail and port infrastructure; food production and food storage facilities, where feasible; and critical electronic communications and broadcasting infrastructure.

The regulations came into force as soon as they were published in the government gazette on Tuesday morning.

The implementation of load-shedding was, before the disaster regulations, governed by codes, legally binding on Eskom. Eskom said in court papers last week that it was prevented by the codes from exempting these types of institutions from load-shedding. The power utility also said exempting specific sites and institutions was mostly not technically feasible.

The regulations would also allow for the “streamlining” of applications and the decision-making process when it comes to environmental authorisations, waste management licences and atmospheric emission licences. They allow the government to bypass the National Environmental Management Act or other environmental laws — when it comes to upgrades, refurbishments, and repairs of existing energy infrastructure and existing generation, transmission and distribution facilities.

Once exemptions or authorisations have been granted, they endure beyond the end of the state of disaster. The regulations say an activity permitted by an authorisation or exemption granted during the state of disaster “remains lawful notwithstanding the termination of the national state of disaster”.

The regulations also allow for directions for measures that would “remove impediments” to the construction of new generation capacity and for “streamlining and expediting” of applications and decision-making concerning energy generating projects. This includes designating a single department or institution to process applications for energy generation projects.

The regulations put in place oversight mechanisms to prevent corruption:

• All emergency procurement under the regulations will be supervised in “real-time” by the office of the auditor-general.
• Accounting officers must take steps to ensure anti-corruption measures are implemented during emergency procurement.
• Any emergency procurement must be published and reported to parliament within a month.

Source: TimesLIVE