EFF statement on the financial sector’s deliberate sabotage of the lockdown

2 April 2020

The EFF condemns the South African Financial Sector's refusal to adapt to the danger facing society due to the coronavirus pandemic. It is a fact that for the National lockdown to succeed, all people must be given payment holidays that include, among other things, bonds, insurance, medical aid, instalments and loans.

Without payment holidays, people face repossessions, evictions and terminations of Insurance and medical aid contracts. As a result, they will be forced to undermine the lockdown by going out to make ends meet or die of hunger. This means, the refusal or reluctance by the financial sector to give payment holidays to everyone will result in the collapse of the lockdown and uncontrollable spread of the deadly coronavirus.

A patriotic Reserve Bank, with a considerate Governor should have imposed upon the financial sector guidelines to give payment holidays to South Africans from the very beginning of the lockdown. This should have not depended on any consultation or autonomous decisions of institutions, but should be motivated solely by the urgent, crucial and definitive fact of the deadly coronavirus pandemic facing us. Yet, to this day this has not happened because the govemment of the day is paralyzed by cowardice.

No institution should on its own be more powerful than the state. It cannot be that our government fears certain sectors of the economy and society because others have threatened potential violent responses should state regulations not be in line with their demands. It cannot be that government bows to the pressure of any one, merely because such people are demanding that the state relax regulations so they can continue to make profit during a dangerous health disaster. What will follow from all these concessions and compromises, soon alcohol industry will also demand exceptions from the regulations. The entire lockdown will not make sense and collapse on its own.

The state must be uncompromising particularly when it comes to any non-essential sector of the economy for relaxation of lockdown regulations. Failure by the state to be firm and uncompromising in its approach, this lockdown will disintegrate, anarchists will triumph and we will all die!

Finally, we commend the SANDF and SAPS members who are on the ground daily enforcing the lockdown regulations. They are putting their lives at risk by confronting non-compliant people who at times insult and provoke them. In our view, the SANDF and SAPS must never compromise in imposing the regulations of the lockdown because these have everything to do with avoiding millions in loss of life. We thank the medical staff and all those who are in the front line fighting to save the lives of the people of South Africa, we salute you.

The EFF will never support any individual who breaks the regulations of the lockdown because the first duty of a revolutionary party is to defend the right to life; this right to life is what is under threat from the spread of the deadly coronavirus. Most importantly, there is actually no right above the right to life because without a living people, there are no other rights to speak about. To have rights, one must first be alive.

We encourage all people to comply with the lockdown and stay at home.

Issued by Vuyani Pambo, National Spokesperson, EFF, 2 April 2020