THE DA has threatened to take the government to court for what he calls an “irrational and unreasonable” extension of the National State of Disaster, and urged the public to back the party in its court action.
On Tuesday, Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma gazetted a further extension of the Covid-19 National State of Disaster, until April 15.
South Africa has been under the National State of Disaster for over two years, since the outbreak of the pandemic.
The DA is claiming that by extending the State of Disaster government is hoping to put in place permanent legislation to keep the lockdown in place.
“I have today instructed our attorneys to bring an urgent court challenge to Tuesday’s irrational and unreasonable extension of the State of Disaster. But it’s not enough just to end the State of Disaster. The lockdown itself must end. It can’t just become permanent legislation, as the government is trying to do,” DA leader John Steenhuisen said on Thursday.
Steenhuisen said government had claimed it was being led by science on the lockdown, which the DA leader said had now been indicated to be unnecessary, irrational and unreasonable.
He pointed to hundreds of thousands of job losses under the lockdown, thousands of livelihoods destroyed, millions of school and university days missed, and billions of Rands lost to tax revenue, which he said could have been used for poverty relief.
“Let’s be clear. The real disaster facing South Africa is our growing poverty and jobs crisis. This crisis poses a far higher risk to national wellbeing and is causing far more human suffering than Covid is,” said Steenhuisen.
“As a nation, we must get better at assessing and balancing risks. Government’s overcaution on Covid is exacting a profound human toll, measured in joblessness, hunger, desperation and despair. This is the human toll that we must balance against the Covid risk, a risk which has extremely low for some time now.”
He said the country was under a self-imposed State of Disaster, caused by the Covid-19 restrictions, that was doing more harm than good, and believed that ending the lockdown would have a major positive impact on South Africa’s economy.
He suggested that, like other countries, masks should only be mandated in high-risk contexts, such as oncology wards.
“The ANC government is no longer fighting the spread of Covid. It is fighting to hold on to the powers it has become accustomed to these past two years. Such an unconstitutional power grab cannot be tolerated in an open, democratic society like ours,” he concluded.
“The Democratic Alliance is going to fight the State of Disaster and the lockdown until we end them both. If President Ramaphosa does not instruct his Poverty Cabinet to end both, we will see him in court.”
- Inside Politics
