EDITORIAL: Time to end the state of disaster
The Ramaphosa cabinet’s astonishingly wide powers cannot be justified in perpetuity
Two years ago, President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a national state of disaster, barely a fortnight after the first Covid-19 cases were identified in SA. In a rare show of decisiveness, the government used the provisions of the Disaster Act to institute stringent lockdown restrictions, including confining people to their homes, closing schools and shuttering large parts of the economy.
Since then the government has repeatedly fumbled its response to the pandemic. It dithered and delayed on vaccine procurement, continued to maintain the theatre of surface and hand sanitising long after scientists concluded transmission of the virus was airborne, and has maintained the state of disaster beyond its sell by date, even if the unpredictable nature of the pandemic and potential for new variants initially justified a cautious approach...
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