Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, has come under fire after she announced the National Coronavirus Command Council’s decision to extend the State of Disaster on Tuesday.
DA spokesperson on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Cilliers Brink, raised concern about the latest decision to extend the State of Disaster and the Covid-19 lockdown, as the pandemic in its current form could no longer be defined as a “disaster”.
“Scientists in South Africa and abroad have called for lockdown restrictions to be lifted.
The DA believes that this move from the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, is nothing but a power grab in order continue to give ANC cronies and comrades easy access to Covid-funds, and to trample upon fundamental Constitutional rights,” Brink said.
He said the decision had been taken “without proper consultation with experts or the President’s Coordinating Council (PCC), no explanation to the public and zero accountability to Parliament”.
Brink called for Dlamini-Zuma to be fired saying her “brand of irrational dictatorship” was eroding the economy and causing massive job losses. National Employers Association of South Africa chief executive, Gerhard Papenfus, said the decision had come after President Cyril Ramaphosa had earlier indicated that the last extension would have been the final one.
“The irony is that there is no ‘state of disaster’.
"For average South Africans, those who do not suffer from irrational fear, nor benefit from the current Covid-narrative, the virus is at the bottom of the list of things to be concerned about. But Minister Dlamini-Zuma is a powerful lady, and she has a point to prove,” Papenfus said.
“We know that they want an alternative in place before they relinquish their current position of power, and to replace the ‘state of disaster’ with something which at least appears sensible.
"Apparently, this is a time-consuming exercise, especially when the bureaucrats working on these finer details are not that eager to bring to an end the mechanism that gave them a sense of importance over the last two years,” he said.
He added that many countries were now dropping Covid-19 lockdown measures, possibly after realising that they constituted severe breaches of constitutional rights and freedoms.
