New Covid-19 regulations detached from reality
17 March 2022
Solidarity today strongly condemned the regulations issued by Health Minister Joe Phaahla as well as Employment and Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi to transfer the current state of disaster.
Solidarity also announced its readiness to participate in the legal process and to litigate if the various ministers should continue with the implementation of these regulations.
According to Solidarity, the proposed regulations are completely impractical and clearly not well thought through.
“Almost all of these regulations represent the type of measures that had little or no impact during the lockdown. Clearly no rational motivation exists for this, and one gets the impression that the government is now simply regulating for the sake of regulating,” said Connie Mulder, head of the Solidarity Research Institute (SRI). “The chances that even a single person’s life would be saved by these regulations are very slim, while the regulations can indeed cause incredible economic and social damage. This is totally insane.”
Solidarity argues that the implementation of these regulations would indeed be a huge step backwards for the country.
“Internationally, the norm is to move away from all forms of lockdown regulations, and to move away completely from pandemic-related measures. It is only in South Africa where the government requires permanent measures to be in place that in effect would establish a permanent state of disaster,” Mulder explained. “In addition to the undesirableness of any such regulations, these measures have been extremely poorly worded: no targets for the repealing of the measures are mentioned; national solutions to local problems are created, and these measures threaten to bring the whole country to a standstill for a few cases.”
“These proposed regulations are not only harmful; they are absurd, illogical and indicate a government that is completely disconnected from reality,” Mulder concluded.
Issued by Connie Mulder, Head: Solidarity Research Institute (SRI), 17 March 2022
