Minister Dlamini Zuma lied to the nation and must be fired.
Note to Editors: Please find attached soundbite from John Steenhuisen MP.
It appears that Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma lied to South Africans in her justification for the continued ban on the sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products. If this is indeed the case, then President Ramaphosa surely has no choice but to fire her from his cabinet.
On 29 April, in a televised briefing of the regulations for Level 4 of the lockdown, Minister Dlamini Zuma claimed that government’s decision to prohibit the sale of tobacco products was partly based on “more than 2,000” public submissions supporting such a ban. These alleged submissions formed part of 70,000 public submissions made to government at the time.
In this briefing the minister said: “Even in the public comments, there was quite a lot of opposition. More than 2,000 people opposed it.” She went on to say that government “took that into consideration, debated the matter, looked at it, and decided that we must continue as we are when it comes to cigarettes, tobacco and related products, and that we should not open up the sale of these products.”
But her responding papers to a court challenge by the Fair-Trade Independent Tobacco Association (FITA) paints an entirely different picture. This 4,000 page response – clearly meant to “spam” the court – included all the public submissions she could find to support her actions. Plus, it seems, many that had nothing to do with cigarettes or tobacco at all. And the actual opposition to cigarette sales turns out to be a mere fraction of what she had claimed.