After numerous calls (and threats) the past weeks for a more open economy to counter-act the negative consequences of the total lockdown, President Ramaphosa recently announced a small relaxation in lockdown regulations. Since the 1st of May, we are now on level 4. Initially, the nature of the various levels (1-5) had been described (predictably) only in medical terms: the number of infections and the readiness of the health sector to manage it.
Only recently, the five levels were also described in business- and economic terms. According the government, the aim of the “risk-adjusted” approach is to open the economy gradually and in phases, but not in such a way that the infection rate increases dramatically.
The regulations published last Wednesday enables a number of sectors to continue or start up with more or fewer staff. The government estimates that this will allow 1.5m workers to re-enter the economy. The sectors that will benefit most are forestry (100% employment), automotive manufacturing (50%), stationery production (50%), cement and construction materials (50%) and all other manufacturing (20%).
The wholesale and retail sectors are allowed to sell hot cooked food for home delivery, and stationery, educational books and personal IT equipment can now be sold. Restaurants are only allowed preparation of food for home delivery. Open cast mining is opened to full employment. A few other relaxations will not have a significant economic impact.
When reading the regulations carefully however, the impression is one of a government that prefers that no one should go to work and that everyone should stay home - and that only really essential services are delivered. This message is also heard almost daily from Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Zweli Mkhize.
This is an ongoing problem and reflects the firm hold that the medical perspective still has on the fight against Covid-19 and especially its consequences. In fact, reading the most recent regulations it is clear that the minister in charge of the state of disaster (Dlamini-Zuma) and the minister of health (Mkhize) totally dominate the efforts, and that other ministries (such as trade and industry) merely have to fall in line. Most other ministries, such as finances, play almost no role. The response to Covid-19 remains largely a medical one.
In this regard, the first question to be asked is whether the relaxations in level 4 are enough to get the economy going again. Taking into account the above toe-in-the-water approach, the answer is a resounding “no”. The 1.5m employees returning to work are too few to bring about a significant turn-around. And time for a good recovery is running out.
If one considers that the informal sector provides 3m people with a livelihood and they (with the exception of spaza shops and informal traders) are still excluded and required to stay at home, the level 4 regulations are far too little to prevent a looming famine, in especially poorer areas.
And one doesn’t even need to mention the futile efforts of corporal Zulu and her cronies of Social Development to get food parcels delivered to the poor. Last week in Centurion (where NGO’s delivered food parcels to the poor and destitute) there was at times a human queue of three kilometres long. Level 4 regulations will change nothing in their lives. Neither will an incapable state.
The second question is whether level 3 would be any better. The first indications are that it would at least offer more relaxations, with manufacturing almost in full employment, commercial construction at 100% employment, with a more open wholesale and retail sector, and a fully open mining industry.
But level 3 will still limit personal movement, with the consequence that the informal sector (where the need is the greatest) will remain locked down. To see a significant economic recovery, we should have been at level 3 (or even level 2) already on the 1st May, with the informal sector more open.
Millions of South Africans who are dependent on piecework and wages must simply be allowed to make a living - they cannot wait any longer for the food parcel that is not coming. To our shame, a new South African concept is emerging: “hunger riots” - and not even 70 000 soldiers will be able to prevent that.
The most important question, however, is of how we get to level 3 and the other levels? And when will this happen? What are the criteria? The short answer is that no one knows. Listening to Zweli Mkhize’s stumbling and general answer last week when asked this question, it seems that even he does not know.
“We are easing into the lower levels, otherwise infections will increase and we will lose control. There is no magic number, we must keep it as low as possible”. And then a thinly disguised threat: if people don’t behave themselves, we are going back to level 5!
The dominance of medical factors and reasoning are clear in both Dlamini-Zuma and Mkhize’s views. The now well-known view of Prof Abdool Karim that the lockdown has served its purpose in buying time for the country to prepare for the inevitable peak in September/October, and that we can’t benefit from it any further, is now largely ignored.
The number of infections (that will inevitably rise due to more testing) is in the background becoming the main success factor for level 4. And economic recovery is clearly on the backburner. If the infection rate is becoming (even indirectly) the measurement, we will never get to level 3 (and even less at level 2).
What these ministers must understand is that a haphazard and shotgun approach will never bring about the much-needed economic recovery. Such an approach is also not transparent. And economic recovery happens on expectations and perceptions: if the perceptions are that the economy will remain closed for a long (or even indefinite) time, many business people will lose heart or become gatvol - with devastating consequences.
Consider this: if each level remains in place as long as the first three-week period of the lockdown, we will only arrive at level 1 in July. That will effectively mean economic damage of three months. Even an economic illiterate must realize that this would be catastrophic. At that time hunger would not be manageable anymore, and the economy would have passed the point of no return. And when we reach the inevitable peak of thousands of infections in September, would we return to level 5?
The suspicion that some medical experts have the final say in the fight against Covid-19 and its consequences, is conclusively confirmed by the (once again) preposterous ban on the sale of tobacco products during level 4 - even after the President announced in public that it would be allowed.
The two ministers’ respective motivations for this ban are laughable, if they were not so irrational and tragic. Mkhize’s answer on this question last week was, to say the least, an embarrassment to his President. According to him, a whole number of factors had been taken into account, but the main reason for the ban is that smoking is bad for your health. It can make smokers more susceptible to all kind of diseases and may make them vulnerable to the Corona virus. “There is no reason why we would ever recommend smoking”.
But that was not the question, minister. The logical consequence of Mkhize’s argument (and that of Dlamini-Zuma) is that tobacco should (and would) be permanently banned. As someone wrote recently: “These kinds of prohibitions represent fundamentally poor legislation because they are incidental and irrelevant to the primary objective which is to curtail contagion”.
Minister Dlamini-Zuma‘s spectacular turnabout on this issue and her predictable excuse that 2 000 submissions against smoking forced her to re-instate the ban, also fails miserably. If one wants to count heads minister, there are 11 million adult South Africans who are smokers. Why don’t you listen to them and respect their right to smoke? By Friday last week, a petition signed by 400 000 South Africans was sent to government. Will you change the ban again?
Nee wat, daai mediese onderrok hang vêr uit!
It is quite possible that a court will find that the ban is illegal and unconstitutional because it is irrational and cannot be linked to the containment of the spread of the virus. In the meantime, the state loses hundreds of millions of much-needed tax rands, and one after the other illegal tobacco crime syndicate arises.
It is abundantly clear that there are differences in cabinet on if and how economic recovery is to be pursued. The short-sighted and one-dimensional medical arguments will in the long term do South Africa more damage than the inevitable Covid-19 deaths that we tragically face. President Ramaphosa, people can die of hunger, too. Call your cabinet members to order and take us to level 3, 2 and 1 much quicker, please?
Theuns Eloff is an independent commentator - and a non-smoker.
