No end to lockdown, insists Ramaphosa
South Africa’s leader resisted growing calls to quickly ease one of the world’s most severe lockdowns which business and union leaders have warned risks an ‘‘economic firestorm’’.
President Cyril Ramaphosa broke a near three-week silence to go on television yesterday to defend his shuttering of much of the economy, which critics argue now threatens to outweigh the damage wrought by the coronavirus.
The continent’s most industrialised nation went into a strict five-tier lockdown at the end of March – a move estimated to be costing its moribund economy $1.2 billion a day. Two weeks ago, it started to gradually ease confinement measures to level four, allowing citizens to exercise outdoors and some businesses to resume.
Amendments to current restrictions could see an expansion to permitted business activities and e-commerce, Ramaphosa said. While most of the country could progress to alert level 3 at the end of May, hotspots of infections, which include the second city of Cape Town, were likely to stay under tighter controls to avoid ‘‘a rapid and unmanageable surge in infections’’, he warned.
Ramaphosa’s statement will have dismayed businesses that were already battling to survive in a recession before the imposition of harsh and often arbitrary regulations. Hopes that he would announce a resumption of alcohol and tobacco sales were also dashed.
Business for South Africa, a group of business organisations, had warned that four million jobs will be at risk and the economy could contract 16 per cent this year unless the lockdown is eased faster.
Seven weeks after the first case was confirmed, 206 people have died from Covid-19 and 12,000 cases have been recorded. Ramaphosa cited data from America and Britain to justify his government’s quick and severe response. The rate of confirmed infections in South Africa stands around 181 cases per one million citizens.
Many commentators have, however, warned of a growing number of casualties from poverty and rising unemployment, which at 29 per cent was already one of the world’s highest. Ramaphosa conceded the dire social consequences of keeping people at home as he revealed ‘‘increased reports of genderbased violence’’. ‘‘The men of our country have declared war on the women of South Africa,’’ he said. Petty and contradictory rules ‘‘had evoked anger’’, he admitted. He also apologised for heavyhanded policing.
Daniel Silke, a political analyst, said the president’s TV appearance had been ‘‘more about defending the government’s lockdown policy in the face of increasing frustration’’ than seeking ‘‘ways to ease the damaging economic fallout’’. The opposition Democratic Alliance repeated its demands for an ‘‘end to the hard lockdown’’.
‘‘This lockdown has cost more lives than it has saved. Millions of jobs and lives have been destroyed,’’ John Steenhuisen, leader of the DA, said.