DA’s grand vaccine plan for the W Cape appears to be at a halt

THE DA Western Cape's grand plan to procure its own vaccines appears to have come to a grinding halt, with opposition parties saying the idea was politically opportunistic from the start.

This came to light following a parliamentary question from ANC MPL Cameron Dugmore to premier Alan Winde. Dugmore asked Winde about the progress made by the province for the procurement of the vaccine.

In his response, Winde said: “No costs have been incurred thus far for the procurement of vaccines.”

Winde also spoke about the vaccine from the National Health Department.

“According to the National Department of Health, the national vaccine procurement programme will see a total of 46 million vaccines procured for the country, of which approximately 4.7 million will be allocated for the Western Cape. I strongly believe that the Covid-19 vaccine is the best way of beating Covid-19 and saving many lives,” Winde said.

Asked yesterday about the provincial government's plan to procure its own vaccines, Winde said: “As a provincial government, we have put in place the necessary measures and budgeted to procure additional vaccines, and continue to engage with prospective suppliers as part of this process. The purpose of this process is to ensure that we have contingency measures in place should there not be enough vaccines or should there be an issue with the national procurement of vaccines.”

Dugmore said Winde's latest response was “disingenuous”.

“It's clear that a huge amount of time has been spent by officials of the provincial government who in essence have been instructed to pursue a DA political agenda. DA leader John Steenhuizen has clearly instructed Premier Winde to try and project a falsehood that the DA will procure its own vaccines. (Health Minister Zweli) Mkhize has made it clear that such an exercise could be deemed to be wasteful and irregular expenditure,” said Dugmore.

Good Party secretary-general Brett Herron said the announcement by the DA was “politically opportunistic”.

“The announcement that the province would ‘go it alone' and order its own vaccines was always a politically opportunistic announcement.

“The DA and the premier saw an opportunity to separate themselves from the pack, cause some panic and pretend that the DA in government could do a better job.

“The truth was that this was never practical since it was widely known that the preference across the world was for vaccines to be procured by sovereign states.

“The Western Cape is not a sovereign state. It is cynical politics,” said Herron.