The Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma has extended the state of disaster to April 15.
She said the decision was taken in order to augment the existing legislation and contingency arrangements undertaken by organs of the state to “impact the Covid-19 disaster”.
The move has prompted some negative reaction from civil society organisations and political parties.
Action SA president Herman Mashaba said they would be exploring all possible avenues to challenge this latest extension.
“This may include legal action and exploring collaboration with like-minded political parties to ensure the freedoms of South Africans are restored,” said Mashaba.
He said that at the end of March South Africans will have lived under this State of Disaster for 24 months.
“During this time, we have had to live under unnecessary and irrational limitations of personal freedoms because of the vast, sweeping powers a State of Disaster affords to a Cabinet which has proven over many years that it should not be trusted with such powers,” said Mashaba.
Mashaba said that South Africans, with a few exceptions, incurred more limitations of their freedoms than other countries and certainly for the longest time, with other countries having long begun opening their spaces and returning to ordinary life. The South African Cabinet appears to cling to the powers afforded to it under the State of Disaster, he added.
AfriForum has also rejected the decision and will be taking the matter to court, which they began doing in February to have the state of disaster nullified, and which the government has opposed.
AfriForum campaign manager Jacques Broodryk said the government has no plans of ever giving up the powers they have grabbed under the “guise of an emergency” over the last two years.
“There is no reason to continue the state of disaster, unless you’re a power-hungry politician or the countless corrupt individuals who are profiting from emergency procurement irregularities,” he said.
In its court argument, AfriForum states that at the moment there is no disaster and they argue that when the current hospitalisation and death rates for Covid-19 are taken into consideration, there is no justification for the continued clampdown on citizens’ freedoms.
Meanwhile, Gerhard Papenfus, CEO of the National Employers’ Association of South Africa, says he believes that Dlamini Zuma is a “powerful lady”, and has a point to prove.
Papenfus suggested that for average South Africans, the virus is at the bottom of the list of things to be concerned about.
"In the meantime, country after country is dropping Covid measures, possibly as a result of the realisation that the measures, introduced over the last two years, constituted severe breaches of constitutional rights and freedoms,” said Papenfus.
lehlohonolo.mashigo@inl.co.za