ECONOMIC Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema has slammed President Cyril Ramaphosa for failing to deal with COVID-19 pandemic, and making little progress in the launch of a successful vaccination rollout programme amid a surge in coronavirus infections.
Malema was speaking outside Uitsig High School in Centurion, Tshwane, at the EFF June 16 commemoration.
He said the EFF would not listen to what Ramaphosa had to say about COVID-19 pandemic, nor adhere to the lockdown restrictions he imposed under lockdown Level 3.
On Tuesday, Ramaphosa announced new restrictions that would be imposed as the country moved to Level 3, which included controlling the number of people who attend indoor and outdoor gatherings.
He said that these restrictions were necessary for combating the Covid-19 virus.
Ramaphosa said despite the setbacks with the COVID-19 vaccine roll out in the country, the pace is picking up with up to 85 000 people now being vaccinated daily.
He said to date 2.4 million Pfizer vaccine doses have arrived in the country which will increase to 3.1 million by the end of the month.
Government has also received an indication from Johnson and Johnson that the 2 million doses that had to be destroyed at Aspen’s plant in Gqeberha will be replaced by the end of the month.
“Let us take the war to this guy. We gave him chance for far too long. We have tolerated his nonsense for a very long time,” Malema told EFF members at the virtual Youth Day rally.
“Let us stop protecting Ramaphosa who is destroying our economy, our youth and selling our country to the highest bidder.”
Malema added: “The unemployed youth of South Africa needs jobs. [lockdown] level 3 will not give them jobs. Gatherings will not give them jobs. What will give them jobs is a vaccine and the opening of a country. So that they can go hunting for jobs. We are excluded from the economy.”
Malema also used the rally to launch an attack on the SA Health Products Regulatory Authority.
He said on Friday the EFF will picket at the offices of SAHPRA.
Malema said, if they did not get a response from the regulatory authority, they would stage sleep-ins at the home of the organisation’s CEO.
“It is personal like that. There will be sleep-ins there until vaccine is provided by the government. We want vaccine from China and Russia provided in South Africa. We will then give them seven days to approve those vaccines. If they fail to we are going to do a sleep-in at the house of the CEO of SAHPRA,” said Malema.
“If we die let’s die because we are going to die anyway. Life is not saved in this country. People are prioritizing their own pockets. The CEO of SAHPRA has allowed to be used by politicians and businesses at the expense of our people. We complied with everything. We even gave them money – R15 million to fight this corona. All they do is to turn around and show us a middle finger.”
He added: “The Russians have offered vaccine before – they refused it. We want our country back. Let us go and reclaim our country back from Ramaphosa.”
Malema said it was disconcerting that the government still had not prioritised essential workers to be vaccinated.
“Police are not vaccinated. There’s no plan to vaccinate teachers who deal with millions of children everyday. Frontline workers… those people are in danger. The nurses, the doctors and all those who work in hospitals those who were told they are a priority till today they are still struggling to vaccinate,” he said.
According to the World Health Organisation’s most recent stats, there are currently 176 156 662 million confirmed cases of Covid-19, while 3 815 486 million people have died from the virus.
A total of 2 310,082 345 million people have been vaccinated globally, so far.
As of last Friday, 283,629 healthcare workers have been vaccinated under the Sisonke Protocol.
According to Ramaphosa, the country has signed an agreement with Johnson & Johnson to secure 11 million doses.
Of these doses, 2.8 million will be delivered in the second quarter and the rest spread throughout the year.
South Africa also secured 20 million doses from Pfizer, which will be delivered from the second quarter, as well as 12 million vaccine doses from the Covax facility.
This is in addition to its dose allocation from the African Union.
The Democratic Alliance said this week it would approach the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) to launch an investigation into the government’s “tardy and criminally slow” vaccine rollout.
“South Africa began its vaccine rollout exactly seven weeks with the Johnson & Johnson Sisonke trial which is meant to overlap with phase 1 of the rollout to cover the target of 1.2 million healthcare workers. To date [Tuesday], just over 269,000 healthcare workers have been vaccinated – a fraction of the target,” said DA Shadow Minister of Health Siviwe Gwarube.
“The trial alone is meant to cover 500,000 healthcare workers but has been impossibly slow.”
- Inside Politics
