Will President Cyril Ramaphosa announce a Cabinet Reshuffle? Photo: GovernmentZA / Twitter
Will President Cyril Ramaphosa announce a Cabinet Reshuffle? Photo: GovernmentZA / Twitter
Ahh, and here, we learn the true value of a promise from the ANC. Just one month after insisting that the February extension of the State of Disaster would be South Africa’s last, lockdown laws were AGAIN prolonged for an additional month on Tuesday morning.
State of Disaster extended – but why?
The move marks a meek flip-flop from the government, who just a few weeks ago, were talking up the chances of moving away from emergency measures. Mzansi’s COVID numbers are approaching record lows, and statistically speaking, there’s never been a better time to end the State of Disaster.
Alas, the Cabinet has justified its decision to extend the legislation to Friday 15 April with a statement resembling a bowl of word soup. Essentially, senior government officials are still trying to add COVID mitigation measures to existing laws, and this is taking much longer than expected.
“The State of Disaster has been extended to 15 April 2022, taking into account the need to continue augmenting the existing legislation and contingency arrangements undertaken by organs of state to address the impact.”
COGTA statement, 15 March 2022
Disaster Management Act, 2002 (Act No 57 of 2002): Extension of a National State of Disaster #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/0zawptXIEs
— NationalCoGTA (@NationalCoGTA) March 15, 2022
The last one… before the last one?
It’s a far cry from what we were told in February, where the most recent extension – made just days after President Ramaphosa vowed to move the country into a different phase of the pandemic during his SONA speech – was categorically confirmed to be the last one. That went well, then…
“Inputs were received from various government departments to determine their respective areas of work that are at an advanced stage of completion. However, after noting that some of the key departments dealing with COVID-19 had not yet concluded their analysis, Cabinet approved the final extension of the National State of Disaster to 15 March 2022”
Cabinet statement, 12 February 2022
