Western Cape heading into covid surge, yet should move to Level 3.

Over half of SA’s confirmed active covid cases are in the Western Cape, where the virus is more established than in other parts of the country and is now moving into the phase of rapid growth ahead of the peak. Yet the province has done what it can to prepare for the peak, and should move to level 3. Leading experts predict that many provinces will catch up to the Western Cape’s trajectory in the coming months. They should not be returned to level 4 or 5, regardless of readiness.

As of 23 May, the Western Cape had 6 146 active cases – people currently known to be infected – out of a total of 11 239 active cases in South Africa. Case numbers are expected to peak in June/July, a couple of months before other provinces, where numbers are expected to peak between August and October.

Why has the Western Cape’s infection curve been ahead of South Africa’s? One reason is that Cape Town is Africa’s most popular tourist region, and thus welcomed the most visitors from the hardest-hit regions in the world, including China, Europe and the United States while the epidemic was progressing. Many of the country’s first cases were reported in the Western Cape, and it is likely that the province has had the highest number of infections all along.

Secondly, the Western Cape has been testing more of its population than any other province. So far, it has tested 1350 people per 100 000 of population, while other provinces have tested between 140 and 850 per 100 000 of population. The more tests conducted; the more cases will be recorded.

Thirdly, in contrast to other provinces, the province’s testing strategy is focused on testing in ‘hotspots’ – places where the infections are concentrated – as opposed to general testing of the population. This means the ratio of positive tests to all tests will be higher, because of testing being focused in places where the virus is suspected, or more likely, to be present.

And fourthly, the Western Cape is performing post-mortem testing. This means patients who were not tested for covid before they died have a greater chance of still being picked up. If someone is not tested for covid before or after they die, their death will not be recorded as a covid-related death. This shows the impact of testing on the reported covid death rate.

Yet, despite the growing numbers, the DA and Premier Alan Winde are adamant that the province should move to level 3, and is probably more ready to open than any other province. Why?

The dual purpose of the lockdown was to buy government time to: 1. increase the capacity of the health care system (“raise the line”) and 2. ramp up more targeted measures to slow the spread of the virus (“flatten the curve”), in particular testing to trace and quarantine infected individuals. The Western Cape has used the time effectively and has been transparent about the increased health and testing capacity that has been achieved:

  • R725.5 million has been committed to covid-related expenditure across the Western Cape Government.
  • The conversion of the CTICC into a temporary hospital facility that will provide 850 additional beds at the peak of the pandemic, set to open 8 June.
  •  Additional temporary hospitals along the R300 in the Metro, in Khayelitsha, and in the Cape Winelands that collectively provide an additional 616 beds, to open soon.
  • 18 testing and triage centres (12 are already operational) to provide additional support at these facilities.
  • 3888 Community Health Workers are operating across the province, with a further 464 due to start work soon
  •  The number of tests have increased from 7 975 on 1 April to 94 275 on 18 May. This is an increase of 1182%.

Some in government believe the Western Cape should be held at level 4. This would be a mistake, just as it will be a mistake to return other provinces to level 4 in the months to come, whether or not they have used the lockdown time to prepare their health systems.

Extended hard lockdown creates more problems than it solves. It presents a greater risk to people than does the virus itself, and will ultimately result in more human misery. It too threatens lives. There is a strong link between economic devastation and increased mortality. The ability of the public health system to treat those with diseases and potentially fatal injuries requires resources which come from tax revenues. Without these resources lives will be lost.

Lockdown has a direct impact on government social and health spending. Aside from the impact on the fiscus, economic decline will lead to job losses (National Treasury estimates between 3 and 7 million for South Africa) and loss of income, which in turn means starvation and malnutrition for millions of people. Poor nutrition and low incomes are further directly linked to compromised immune systems reducing quality of life and years lived and also making people more susceptible to contracting covid.

Government’s worst-case mortality projections of 45 000 covid deaths this year, while grim, reflect that the covid response has been grossly out of proportion to the threat. We need to bear in mind that more than 400 000 South Africans die from natural causes each year, including around 37 000 from tuberculosis and 32 000 from diabetes, as well as 15 000 in road accidents and 21 000 from murder. (In the US, between 1 February and 16 May this year, across all ages, more people died of pneumonia than covid.)

None of these threats to human life lead us to mothball our economy and stay indoors, and for good reason. While every death is a human tragedy, we cannot avoid all deaths, nor sacrifice society’s other competing needs, such as food and mobility.

DA welcomes phased reopening of tertiary institutions

The Democratic Alliance (DA) welcomes the phased, risk-based strategy for opening up the higher education sector announced by Minister Blade Nzimande during a press conference yesterday.

The DA has previously made several proposals to the Ministry and we are pleased to see many of those proposals being incorporated.

According to the phased, risk based strategy, most teaching will continue online while in stage 4, with a surge in online teaching from 1 June onwards. As soon as Stage 3 is announced, a third of all students will be able to return to face-to-face studies while online studies continue for the rest, while in each of Stages 2 and 1 a further one third will be added, again with online teaching continuing for any students unable to return.

The DA further notes the emphasis on health protection measures which the Minister said are in the pipeline.

Furthermore, the negotiated zero-rated websites and the provision of “educational data bundles” and resources for the purchase of laptops to students, together with the delivery of paper-based teaching and learning material will go a  long way in assisting learners who don’t have access to digital platforms.

We acknowledge that each institution will differ in its implementation plans and capacity. Some might have to extend the academic year into 2021 in order to finish the work required and hold exams. In this case NSFAS might have to find an additional approximately R9bn order to cover the costs of students attending for another three months or so.

The DA will keep a close eyes on how the Department supports and implements these plans across the country. A mammoth task lies ahead as students gradually return to the institutions and not every institution will  be able to fulfil the envisaged processes fully or perfectly.

We will be monitoring the return of students over the next few months to ensure that where there are shortfalls they are quickly addressed.  We will also be looking carefully at the regulations that will follow this announcement by the Minister to ensure that they are sensible and rational.

There are however more details to be confirmed that include:

  • What will the entire exercise cost, including but not confined to the additional R9bn required by NSFAS, and where will the funding be found?
  • In light of the fact that both online and face-to-face teaching will have to occur simultaneously for long periods, will lecturers need to work overtime, and will they be paid accordingly?
  • Will additional staff be required to ensure social distancing and other essential health protections? and
  • How will 2020 matriculants be affected by these changes once they pass and choose to further their studies in institutions of higher learning in 2021? This particularly applies to institutions that will be extending the academic year.

The DA is committed to ensuring South Africa adapts to the new normal, while recognising that the Constitution protects the right to education.

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DA calls for SASSA to extend office hours and fully capacitate their offices to assist desperate South Africans

The Democratic Alliance (DA) calls on the Minister of Social Development, Lindiwe Zulu, and the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) CEO, Busisiwe Memela-Khambula, to extend SASSA office hours and fully capacitate their offices.

Over the past week, we have heard shocking accounts of people queueing outside SASSA offices for days at a time, without being seen, never mind helped. Vulnerable South Africans are spending nights on the streets outside SASSA offices in the hopes of receiving help for the dire situations at their homes. The majority are returning home without hope of means to support themselves or their families.

Clearly, the limited numbers of SASSA staff cannot cope with the magnitude of people needing help in the limited hours per day they are on duty which severely impairs SASSA’s ability to provide basic frontline services to the public. SASSA must safely capacitate their offices, ensuring that social distancing is practised, as a matter of urgency.

SASSA has fully trained employees sitting at home, earning a full salary. It must, therefore, make a plan to help desperate South Africans.

The fact that only 10 people have received the special Covid-19 Social Relief of Distress grant of R350 is another indication that the limited staff compliment and working hours is unfeasible.

Minister Zulu and CEO Memela-Khambula must honour their mandate and duty during this time of crisis, by fully opening SASSA offices, in accordance to Covid-19 protocols, in order to prevent an even worse humanitarian implosion.

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DA questions appointment of new CEO of Regulatory Board of Auditors

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has written to Tito Mboweni, the Minister of Finance, to request details of the proposed appointment of Ms Jenitha John as the CEO of the Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors (IRBA).

There are significant questions about the process followed for the appointment of Ms Jenitha John as the CEO of the IRBA. Ms John sat on the Board of Tongaat Hulett and chaired their Audit and Compliance Committee for 12 years during which period massive accounting irregularities apparently took place.

She was also a past Chair of the Nampak audit committee where there were also very serious concerns of malfeasance. Ms John, not surprisingly left her very lucrative position at Firstrand at the time of the emerging Tongaat Hulett accounting malfeasance.

Ms John is also strangely not a qualified and registered auditor and yet she is to run an organisation that has the main purpose of regulating the conduct of registered auditors.

There is surely no good argument to appoint someone without suitable qualifications and whose professional career is seemingly mired in controversy, the very sort of controversy that the IRBA is mandated to prevent?

Given that Mr Bernard Agulhas, the current CEO of the IRBA, has by all accounts done an excellent job during his term as CEO it raises questions of why the IRBA Board would make a clearly controversial appointment of Ms Jenitha John as a replacement for Mr Agulhas?

The IRBA Board is clearly in a rush to appoint Ms John. In a clear push to ensure that the appointment cannot be overturned, the board has taken the very strange step of apparently bringing Ms John’s appointment forward to the 25th of May 2020 and Mr Agulhas has apparently been requested to leave at the end of May 2020.

If this proposed and rushed arrangement by the IRBA Board does go ahead it will mean a mere five-day handover of the accounting officer position of an organisation tasked with a critical oversight role in the ethical life of business in South Africa.

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Ramaphosa must heed the call to save Tourism now

The Democratic Alliance (DA) understands that President Cyril Ramaphosa is consulting with stakeholders in the tourism sector who have requested to meet with him.

We hope that the president will listen to the stakeholders as the tourism recovery plan presented by the National Department of Tourism envisages the sector opening up only in December. Already many people working within this sector have lost jobs and companies are closing down as a result of the lockdown.

Government’s tourism recovery plan has been drawn up in isolation without taking into account, and speaking to, the various lockdown levels. It arbitrarily foresees the revival of tourism in only 12 months’ time, while also arbitrarily labeling the next 6 months as a “readiness” period, thus ignoring the realities on the ground. The tourism sector simply cannot wait to fit in with an illogical and ill-conceived one-dimensional government plan.

Certain sub-sectors within the tourism and travel sector can immediately open up due to its nature which already respects social distancing in any event. These include, amongst others, self-catering accommodation and country accommodation which have isolated and self-contained accommodation units.

Unless the president heeds the desperate calls by the tourism, hospitality and travel sectors, much of these and associated sectors will be mostly decimated within a few weeks, retarding by years any progress made within the sector.

The DA is presently preparing a researched, scientific and statistically-driven alternative tourism plan, with the objective of minimizing any further destruction and job losses within the sector, which we plan to present to government shortly.

Click here to contribute to the DA’s legal action challenging irrational and dangerous elements of the hard lockdown in court

Minister Mkhize should encourage dissenting views, not suppress them

Conflict within Health Minister, Dr Zweli Mkhize’s Ministerial Advisory Committee (MAC), over the past few weeks has revealed a culture of seeking to silence dissenting voices within government.

The fight against Covid-19 is one that requires plurality of voices – something that can be achieved by the 50-member advisory committee that was appointed to advise the Minister. However, if those experts who disagree with government strategy are criticized, sidelined or silenced we will rob the country of the opportunity to utilise the variety of skills that we have at our disposal.

 The point of an advisory committee is to provide expert advice to government in order to inform its strategy against Covid-19. While the advice will be weighed against other competing interests that government may be looking at, we cannot ignore or seek to vilify input that is coming from the scientific community simply because it does not fall in line with government strategy. Any country that has a fighting chance against this virus should consider a wide range of views and credible bodies of work that accompany those views.

We have seen over the past weeks those who have broken rank within the MAC be treated with disdain. This is a concerning trend that Minister Mkhize should be fighting against instead of allowing his department to instigate it.

The health response to date has been largely commendable. However, once expert voices are maligned for not rubber – stamping government strategy, it raises the question about the credibility of said strategy.

While we should never excuse the peddling of false information in order to advance an argument, the right of those who have differing views must still be protected. The use of false information must be dealt with as a separate matter. Government should not deliberately conflate the refuting of false claims with the right to make differing inputs.

The DA’s fight is for the South African government to create space for scientific data to lead the response to this virus. We cannot have a government response that is divorced from scientific or health data. That can truly happen when the space to agree and disagree with government is created and cultivated. Minister Mkhize should be the champion of that culture.

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Leon van Wyk elected as the new Executive Mayor in George

The Democratic Alliance (DA) welcomes the election of Leon van Wyk as the new Mayor of George. We congratulate Leon and wish him, and the DA team in George, well for their term in office.

We are confident that the election of Mayor Van Wyk is the first important step towards restoring the integrity of the George Council, and will bring with it the “DA difference” that residents expect from us.

Leon brings with him the integrity, energy and humility needed for the job. He will take the lead in focusing on attracting investment, growing the local economy, and retaining George’s status as one of the best places to live in South Africa. This way, the municipality will be properly resourced to improve basic service delivery to the poor and invest in much needed infrastructure.

This is also an historic election – to our knowledge the first time a Mayor has been elected in a virtual Council meeting.

We wish Leon and his team all the best for the future.

Click here to contribute to the DA’s legal action challenging irrational and dangerous elements of the hard lockdown in court

Minister Cele Smoking his socks with latest comments on cigarette ban

At a press briefing on Friday 22 May Minister of Police, Bheki Cele, announced that anyone found smoking in public would need to produce a receipt to prove when and where their cigarettes were purchased.

Further to this laughable announcement it is reported that the Minister said the following:

“It is not illegal to smoke cigarettes in your house. The only problem is when you fail to show us when and where you got the cigarettes. Buying cigarettes and the sale is illegal. Until those regulations are removed it will remain an offence to do such.”

There is no regulation making provision for any person to be compelled to provide proof of purchase for their cigarettes.

These latest comments join a long list of irrational and petty Ministerial edicts which cause confusion in public and among the police officers deployed to enforce the regulations.

The DA demands that the Minister publicly retract his comments and apologize to the nation.

Click here to contribute to the DA’s legal action challenging irrational and dangerous elements of the hard lockdown in court

Food distribution safe for a month as court blocks Lindiwe Zulu’s starvation regulations

The Western Cape High Court has postponed the Democratic Alliance (DA) challenge to Minister Lindiwe Zulu’s attempt to regulate the distribution of food.

In the meantime, though, it has ordered that government is not allowed to prevent people from exercising their existing rights to distribute and receive food. See the court order here.

The court has ordered Minister Zulu to bring this to the attention of social development officials in her department and MECs in all of the provinces. The Commissioner of police has also been ordered to bring this order to the attention of all police officials.

This means that for the next four weeks food distribution by NGOs can continue as normal before the matter finally comes to court.

The DA brought the case after draft regulations started being enforced 3 weeks ago. These regulations shut down soup kitchens and placed stiff regulations on the distribution of food parcels. This stopped food reaching thousands of hungry people as food relief NGO’s were threatened with arrest if they did not stop. We believe thousands of people have suffered hunger and malnutrition because of this.

Minister Zulu defended the regulations, saying relief needed to be coordinated. This is clearly delusional as her department cannot even properly perform its current function, let alone instantly build a proper distribution network to millions of people.

The DA will see the Minister in court for the case on the 19th of June.

Minister Zulu’s callous action morally stained both her and the ANC government.

Click here to contribute to the DA’s legal action challenging irrational and dangerous elements of the hard lockdown in court

Minister Zulu should hang head in shame as only 10 people have received R350 special grant

The Minister of Social Development, Lindiwe Zulu, and the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) CEO, Busisiwe Memela-Khambula, should hang their heads in shame following reports that only 10 people have received the special Covid-19 Social Relief of Distress grant of R350.

The Department and SASSA has seemingly misled the nation when they indicated that payments for this grant would commence on 15 May 2020. Clearly they are in over their heads and do not have a handle on this Special Grant. This was evident in Parliament on Thursday when the DA asked the CEO how many recipients of the Special Grant had been paid, and instead of answering the question, she proceeded to give a long-winded explanation on vetting applicants and testing the system.

While the DA acknowledges that it is no small feat to vet and approve 3.5 million people in a short amount of time, the reality is that the President announced the special Covid-19 Social Relief of Distress Grant on 21 April 2020.

SASSA, therefore, had more than three weeks to plan as well as to vet and approve a significant proportion of applications. It is ridiculous that only 10 people have received this grant and no amount of spin will justify this mammoth failure on the part of Minister Zulu and CEO Memela-Khambula.

The revelation today is yet another indication of how the Government is neglecting the poorest people in this country in the most awful manner. Not only do they try to prevent NGOs from distributing food to the poor, but they also make it almost impossible for desperate people to access the meager R350 relief.

SASSA has so far failed to fully rise to the challenge of supporting those in need. The DA calls on Minister Zulu to take full responsibility for her Department’s poor showing.

Click here to contribute to the DA’s legal action challenging irrational and dangerous elements of the hard lockdown in court