With much news and comment focusing on the pressure being brought to bear on the government to account for the decisions of its National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC), President Cyril Ramaphosa is facing calls to demonstrate more public leadership.
Democratic Alliance (DA) leader John Steenhuisen yesterday questioned why the president had not addressed the country in nearly three weeks. This was also the thrust of a column yesterday by News24 editor-in-chief Adriaan Basson.
Steenhuisen said: ‘Since his announcement of a move to Level 4 of the lockdown, (Ramaphosa) has been missing in action and has left it to a handful of ministers to communicate the questionable decisions of the NCCC.
‘We call on the President to address the nation regularly – at least once a week – and that these briefings should include the opportunity to answer questions from the media. We also call on him to make public all Covid-19 data, along with the NICD (National Institute for Communicable Diseases) modelling he is using to justify the continued lockdown,’ Steenhuisen said.
Positive cases rose yesterday by 698 to 11 350.
It also emerged that President Ramaphosa was to convene a special Cabinet meeting yesterday afternoon to ‘relook’ at the terms of reference of the NCCC and weigh up legal action it is facing, according to a report by News24’s political editor Qaanitah Hunter.
In separate report, Hunter said that while top ANC officials, including Ramaphosa, had cautioned finance minister Tito Mboweni about making controversial statements on social media, the president had backed Mboweni as head of the crucial finance portfolio.
The report said Mboweni’s plan to approach the International Monetary Fund for funding ‘has been endorsed by the ANC national executive committee’ and the party’s focus was now on the post-Covid-19 recovery plan.
The head of Tourism Business Council of SA, Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa, warned that there would be ‘nothing left’ of the country’s tourism industry if it was only able to resume operating in December.
The World Travel and Tourism Council reportedly estimated that South Africa’s tourism industry provided jobs for more than 700 000 people by last year. The industry has been decimated by travel and movement restrictions imposed to curb the spread of Covid-19.
It was announced yesterday that the chairperson of the Council for Medical Schemes, Dr Clarence Mini, had died from Covid-19 complications. The council said Mini had suffered from asthma.
In other virus-related news
- There have been more than 4.2 million confirmed cases globally, with 287 000 deaths and nearly 1.5 million recoveries;
- The city of Wuhan ordered all its 11 million residents to be tested for the coronavirus after six new cases were registered at the weekend, reportedly all linked to an 89-year-old man who tested positive on Saturday; and
- Russia now has the second-highest number of confirmed coronavirus infections worldwide after the United States. The country yesterday reported 10 899 infections in 24 hours, bringing the total to more than 232 000. Moscow is the worst-affected area, reporting more than 5 000 new cases in 24 hours.