Make us allies in the fight, not enemies
In the midst of a pandemic like the one we are facing, transparency and communication from the government and leaders is important, especially if you want the buy-in of citizens when it comes to regulations that severely affect their lives. This is not the time for secrecy.
The Sunday Times reported last week that the government admitted to holding back information on the Covid-19 pandemic from the public to avoid panic. This was after leading experts questioned why modelling data was being kept under wraps.
“We don’t want to put these models out to the public as if they are the gospel truth,” presidency spokesperson Khusela Diko told the newspaper. “There is an element where we want to avoid panic in communities, and we’re also mindful of the stigma of the virus.”
This is all well and good, but it has led to many questioning how the government is making decisions about the national lockdown and whether those decisions are rational, especially when experts are publicly saying the lockdown has served its purpose. If everything is being done above board there should be nothing to hide.
This veil of secrecy around decision-making and the formulation of regulations has opened the government to a legal challenge of the entire framework. The DA and Freedom Front Plus (FF+) announced on Thursday that they were approaching the court to challenge the constitutionality of aspects of the Disaster Management Act, under which the national coronavirus command council (NCCC), chaired by President Cyril Ramaphosa, functions.
This will bring the entire lockdown under legal scrutiny. The two opposition parties have criticised the lack of oversight or accountability of the NCCC, saying it challenges the principles of democracy. If the challenges are successful, the national state of disaster declared by the government in March, and the regulations put in place under this, could be declared unconstitutional.
DA leader John Steenhuisen says unless the act passes constitutional muster, the decisions taken by the NCCC will not be valid. His party will be asking the court to apply the same oversight provisions to the state of disaster as to a state of emergency, because without this oversight “petty authoritarians, hopped up on power, are allowed to run amok”. His comments are echoed by the FF+’s Pieter Groenewald.
This is not the first time questions about the constitutionality of the act and the NCCC have been raised. Earlier in May, advocates Erin Dianne Richards and Nazeer Cassim wrote to Ramaphosa questioning the role of the NCCC and asked for clarity on its powers. They also spoke about the lack of transparency from the government.
They said the NCCC seemed to be displacing constitutional and statutory functions under the Disaster Management Act, compromising parliamentary oversight and in turn opening the door to potential unchecked abuses of state power. Richards and Cassim said they were concerned about “possible risks of constitutional and democratic malfunctioning”.
The voices around this have been getting louder, with citizens demanding answers from the government and, more importantly, communication from Ramaphosa.
The initial tipping point was the continued ban on tobacco products, while “fashion commissar” Ebrahim Patel’s detailed edict on what winter clothing retailers could sell pushed reason-seeking South Africans further over the cliff.
His bizarre list of clothing allowed to be bought during level 4 lockdown included underwear, which until now was not allowed to be bought, short-sleeved T-shirts (where promoted and displayed as undergarments for warmth) and crop bottoms (worn with boots and leggings). It is unclear why such a detailed list needed to be provided, nor why South Africans can’t just buy whatever clothes they feel they need.
So after almost 20 days since his last address to the nation, Ramaphosa addressed citizens on Wednesday night.
The address did not give much detail, except that there will be consultations over further easing of the lockdown and moving to level 3. But this did not necessarily mean the whole country would move down a level, as areas seen to be hotspots could remain on level 4. There was also mention that regulations on retail, exercise and e-commerce under level 4 would be amended in the coming days. On Thursday, the Government Gazette published new regulations that allow online retailers to sell any goods, except cigarettes and alcohol. There is still no clarity on changes to retail and exercise.
Ramaphosa did acknowledge that while dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic there may have been times when the government had “fallen short of your expectations”.
“Some of the actions we have taken have been unclear, have been contradictory and have been poorly explained. Implementation has sometimes been slow and enforcement has sometimes been inconsistent and too harsh,” he said.
Ramaphosa said the government would in future ensure decisions were taken in good faith, that they were reasonable and based on empirical evidence, and that they did not cause more harm than good. He also said the government would be transparent and would take the nation into its confidence regularly. So let’s see what happens. There is no need for covert action. The government should leave its infantile approach to sharing information and bring us on board.
It also needs to stop treating citizens like the enemy. If we do not know the facts, it becomes easy for people to say this is much ado about nothing, which is not the case.
THIS VEIL OF SECRECY AROUND DECISIONMAKING HAS OPENED THE GOVERNMENT TO A LEGAL CHALLENGE OF THE ENTIRE FRAMEWORK