Finance Minister Tito Mboweni suggested that part of the post-lockdown ‘new economy’ should be hiring rules to favour South Africans over foreigners.
Though he said there should not be discrimination against non-South Africans, his remarks come against a background of often violent xenophobia in the country.
Mboweni was spelling out details of South Africa’s coronavirus crisis plan when he digressed by saying that when he returned from exile in 1990, 8 out of 10 workers at restaurants were South African, whereas, today, almost all were non-South African.
He suggested post-lockdown labour market regulations to change this. ‘The proportion of South Africans working in a restaurant must be greater than that of non-South Africans,’ he said.
Positive cases in South Africa rose by 267 to 4 220. There were four more deaths, bringing fatalities to 79. The Western Cape has the highest number of cases with 1 279, followed by Gauteng (1 252) and KwaZulu-Natal (807).
President Cyril Ramaphosa acknowledged South Africa’s notorious record of state corruption when he vowed that money secured by government to provide Covid-19 relief would be protected from corruption. ‘We are going to keep a hawk’s eye on how the money is going to be spent,’ he said.
The family of 40-year-old Collins Khosa, allegedly beaten to death by South African National Defence Force soldiers earlier this month, failed to get a hearing at the ConCourt on its plea to rein in lockdown security actions, and will now be approaching the high court.
Former ConCourt judge, Justice Edwin Cameron joined calls to release some prisoners from the country’s overcrowded jails in order to curb the spread of the virus in prisons.
South Africans were to learn more today on the classification of industries as part of the government’s risk-adjusted strategy for re-opening the economy. The strategy was to be opened for public comment and consultation at 10am today.
In other virus-related news
- World leaders have launched a World Health Organization (WHO) initiative to speed up the research, development and distribution of vaccines, drugs and tests against the coronavirus, the BBC reported;
- Spain reported its lowest number (367) of daily deaths for a month;
- South Korea reported no deaths on Thursday, but health officials warned it was important to remain vigilant;
- Deaths in the United States exceeded 50 000 yesterday, according to Johns Hopkins University;
- US President Donald Trump was lambasted by the medical community after suggesting research into whether coronavirus might be treated by injecting disinfectant into the body. In a straight-faced rebuttal, the world’s biggest manufacturer of disinfectants such as Dettol and Lysol warned against any internal use of the products.