One of the most contentious elements of the government’s stringent lockdown – the ban on the sale of tobacco products – goes to court today.
The hearing has been set down for today and tomorrow in the High Court in Pretoria.
The ban was meant to have been lifted – as President Cyril Ramaphosa promised – at the end of the first period of lockdown, but his announcement was countermanded by his Cabinet colleague and outspoken anti-smoking campaigner, Cooperative Governance Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.
Cigarette sales remain banned, but the black market run by illegal operators long reputed to have influential friends has thrived, at a multi-billion rand cost to the Treasury, and rising costs to smokers.
Most surveys have shown smoking has continued at a high rate.
Dlamini-Zuma insists, however, that allowing legal cigarette sales would undermine the fight against Covid-19.
This is being contested by the Fair Trade Independent Tobacco Association (Fita).
Fita chair Sinenhlanhla Mnguni insists that health hazard associated with smoking ‘does not justify the dramatic and far-reaching shutting down of an entire industry together with the associated industries, the enormous and devastating irreparable harm to employment, the loss of greatly needed revenue and the interference with the freedom of the individuals of society who have a right to consume tobacco products which after all are illegal’.
Mnguni also argues that, at a time when Covid-19 cases are rising steeply, the ban undermines efforts to fight the spread of the disease.
He said: ‘The high-handed manner in which this ban is being meted out is most concerning and results in citizens losing respect for the process and wonderfully good intentions with which the lockdown process commenced.’
Positive cases in South Africa rose by 2 594 to 50 879 (with 26 099 recoveries). Deaths rose by 82 to 1 080, 55 in the Western Cape, 26 in the Eastern Cape and one in KwaZulu-Natal.
In the Western Cape, the Cape Town International Convention Centre, converted into the 862-bed ‘Hospital of Hope’, admitted its first 10 patients, just four weeks after it was transformed from a top events venue into a medical facility.
Provincial premier Alan Winde was reported yesterday to have said he was still in the dark about the details of the deployment of Cabinet ministers to help in the fight against the virus, as reported in the Sunday Times.
The premier said there would need to be consultation between national and the province’s leadership on this before the plan could ahead.
In Johannesburg, mayor Geoff Makhubo went into self-isolation after a staffer in his office tested positive for Covid-19. News24 said a statement by mayoral spokesperson Mlimandlela Ndamase indicated that the staff member tested positive after visiting the Western Cape for a funeral last week. The staff member was self-isolating at home.
Most schools across the country reopened yesterday (a week after Western Cape schools reopened), but many did not, some because of infections, and others because of the absence of water supplies or water shortages, and the lack of personal protective equipment.
In the Eastern Cape, 95% of schools reopened, but 490 remained shut.
Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi said 38 schools in the province remained closed after having reported Covid-19 cases.
More than 100 schools in KwaZulu-Natal did not open due to water challenges.
In other virus-related news
- World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that while the outbreak in Europe was improving, ‘globally it is worsening’. He said more than 100 000 cases had been reported in nine of the past 10 days, and 75% of the previous day’s cases came from just 10 countries, most of them in the Americas and South Asia;
- WHO’s health emergencies chief Michael Ryan called on Brazil to share information about the country’s outbreak ‘in a consistent and transparent way’. Brazil had the world’s second-highest number of cases and had recently had more new deaths than any other nation, but had removed months of Covid-19 data from a government website. Ryan said the information was vital to protecting citizens. He said: ‘They need to understand what’s happening. They need to understand where the virus is. They need to know how to manage the risks to them’; and
- The Financial Times reported last night that United States stocks ‘have recouped all of their losses for the year thanks to a rally spurred by central bank stimulus and optimism among investors that economic activity may be rebounding’. The report said the S&P 500 advanced 1.2 per cent to close at 3,232.39, back above their level at the start of 2020, building on gains from Friday’s unexpected rise in US employment in May.