Kudos for Tabisher’s straight talk
WHAT a pity that President Cyril Ramaphosa and his National Coronavirus Command Council didn’t read Alex Tabisher’s column (An assault on our intelligence, May 20) before they announced the level 3 lockdown. If they had, they would have realised that like most politicians around the world, they are floundering in the dark over Covid-19.
You only have to look at the bizarre restrictions on the sale of alcohol, which have now been eased but are even more incomprehensible.
The cigarette ban is also baffling. Perhaps like her ex-husband, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma can’t read big figures: she probably thinks the 2 000 or so signatures she received to uphold the ban is greater than the 400 000 who asked that tobacco sales be allowed.
If people want to smoke and drink that’s their issue. Perhaps the minister can tell us how many smokers have contracted the virus or died or recovered from it. I’m not a doctor, but if you’re going to get Covid-19 you will, whether you drink or smoke, and it’s more likely you’ll get it from the illicit sellers who are costing the fiscus billions.
Tabisher wrote that “close to him (Ramaphosa) are various luminaries with dubious integrity”.
Police Minister Bheki Cele was involved in shady dealings over leases for police buildings and he was investigated by former public protector Thuli Madonsela.
Dlamini Zuma was responsible for the Sarafina! debacle which wasted thousands when she was in the Thabo Mbeki Cabinet, and who punted virodene as the cure for HIV/Aids.
Trade and Industry Minister Ebrahim Patel is a high-ranking SACP cadre, which is not a crime. However, his communist ideology was showing when he banned the sale of long-sleeve shirts and underpants, among other things, under levels 5 and 4. Covid-19 is respiratory illness, not a sexually transmitted disease, so why underpants?
There is no logical explanation for many of the restrictions, except for the strict health guidelines, ie masks and sanitisers.
I wonder if Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula knows that his instructures to the taxi industry about sanitising vehicles and driver and passengers wearing masks aren’t being followed. At least not here in Blaauwberg, and I’ve seen very few police enforcing the law at the ranks.
Tabisher also cites the death of a cameraman from Covid-19, who was part of a team interviewing Premier Alan Winde. Not far from his Wale Street headquarters you can see why the rate of the coronavirus is rocketing in the province. He should saunter down to the Sassa offices in Long Street where hundreds of grant beneficiaries are ignoring the social distancing requirements.
Kudos to Tabisher for being one of the few columnists who doesn’t just swallow the government’s Covid-19 information. BRIAN JOSS | Milnerton