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Minister in the Presidency Mondli Gungubele, 9/12/2021 – Image: GCIS/ Flickr

Gungubele: Ending State of Disaster will speed up economic recovery

Despite criticism, Minister in the Presidency Mondli Gungubele maintains the decisions government took were necessary

SASSA technical glitch

Minister in the Presidency Mondli Gungubele, 9/12/2021 – Image: GCIS/ Flickr

Minister in the Presidency, Mondli Gungubele says the lifting of the State of Disaster will accelerate the country’s economic recovery from COVID-19.

Gungubele addressed media on Tuesday, 5 April 2022, together with his Cabinet colleagues Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Health Minister, Dr Joe Phaahla.

The enforcing of the State of Disaster may have been critical at the start of the pandemic, but government has been blamed for hindering the country’s economic potential by keeping it in place, especially over the last year. But with the State of Disaster now a thing of the past, the minister reckons the country is better placed to further prosper on the economic front, which has always been the argument from those who opposed the decision to keep it in place.

“We are now increasing speed in our efforts to revive our economy which has been negatively impacted by the pandemic,” Gungubele said.

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MONDLI GUNGUBELE ON LIFTING THE STATE OF DISASTER

Despite criticism from health experts and opposition parties on government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly for dragging the State of Disaster for as long as they did, Mondli Gungubele maintains that all the decisions they made as government (including the National Coronavirus Command Council) were necessary to help navigate what eventually became a health and economic crisis.

“[Monday] marked 750 days since we the country was placed under a National State of Disaster as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yesterday evening the President addressed the nation and indicated that there is no doubt that the actions that we took then as government was necessary,” he said.

“Under these prevailing circumstances, the measures that we put, as indicated by the President, were effective in slowing down the rate of infection, easing pressure on our hospitals and most importantly, providing the time needed and necessary to ready ourselves and the country. We were able to develop the necessary infrastructure, pool resources and coordinate our capacity to manage the large number of people who became ill,”

Minister in the Presidency, Mondli Gungubele

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