‘Tentative’ President Ramaphosa has a council for every crisis but no solutions

In December 2021, Police Minister Bheki Cele gazetted the names of the five members of the Critical Infrastructure Council.

Four months later, he published the regulations that would guide the work of the council, intended to advise him on protecting critical infrastructure from theft, sabotage and other threats. It stipulates that the council should meet quarterly but, to date, it has not convened once — a fact one of the members lamented in a recent email to President Cyril Ramaphosa, which has so far gone unanswered.

The council member, who asked not to be named, stressed in his letter to the president not just Eskom, but Transnet infrastructure, national roads, schools, hospitals, dams and parliament itself “are all victims of arson, theft, sabotage and vandalism”. 

“This is an urgent matter,” he added.

“As an elected council we have not yet met to start the work of the identification and declaration of infrastructure as critical infrastructure; we have not set up any guidelines, measures nor other controls to protect, safeguard and ensure the resilience of infrastructure.”