EFF welcomes the abandoning of the dehumanizing scooters in the Eastern Cape to combat Covid-19

9 July 2020

The Economic Freedom Fighters welcomes the decision to abandon the dehumanising and hazardous scooters program in the Eastern Cape. It was purported that these scooters were rolled out to assist in transporting patients who are affected by the deadly Coronavirus. The EFF is vindicated in its assertions that those scooters were not an adequate measure to address the health needs of those affected by COVID-19 and were an embarrassment to South Africa's national health efforts to fight the virus.

Health Minister Zweli Mkhize declared that the scooters do not meet the basic criteria for patient transport as an ambulance. This is ironic because it was Mkhize who was present at the launching of the ridiculous scooter program and was seen beaming as a passenger in its carriages. For the Minister to realise now how inadequate these scooters are for their intended purpose after endorsing them reveals a National Health Department that is not in control or providing coherent guidance to the Department it leads:

The scooter program in the Eastern Cape is nothing but one of the many corrupt enterprises of a government hell-bent on milking the COVID-19 pandemic for personal benefit. For Mkhize to backtrack on his endorsement of the scooters and attempt to suggest that they are now for the delivery of chronic medication is to put another mask on blatant corruption and misuse of funds. Over RIO million has been spent on the program that seemingly has no definitive purpose.

The scooters are inadequate to address the problem of distribution of medication and healthcare in the Eastem Cape, which are rooted in poor infrastructure development. The program must be abandoned altogether, and all resources used wastefulness to sustain it must be recovered and redirected to a useful purpose.

We call for the immediate resignation of the MEC of Health in the Eastern Cape and for her to personally pay back the money which was wasted on ineffective scooters. We cannot allow the waste of limited state-resources, in a time of a global health pandemic to go unpunished, especially when there are visible signs of corruption.

Issued by Vuyani Pambo, National Spokesperson, EFF, 9 July 2020