PETER BRUCE: Logic now has nothing to do with handling Covid-19 in SA; it’s just politics
President Cyril Ramaphosa is up against it if he is going to continue seeking political consensus on decisions that should be made on science alone
There must be the mother of all battles going on in the cabinet, or the National Coronavirus Command Council, which seems to consist of the entire cabinet. There is still no sure sign that there is agreement on whether President Cyril Ramaphosa's announcement that tobacco sales will resume when the national lockdown softens slightly from Level 5 to 4 on Friday after the President was openly challenged on the issue. The lockdown has left science behind it. From now on it is a political affair.
Pathetic, I know. But while the president announced on Thursday last week that tobacco would be back on sale at Level 4, the co-operative governance and traditional affairs minister directly challenged him at a media conference she and trade and industry minister Ebrahim Patel gave on Saturday. Answering a planted question about tobacco sales and why it was being allowed now when it wasn't before, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma didn't hold back...
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