By Lucky Ntimane
If you are not going to work today, it is probably because you are among those whose livelihoods were affected when President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a ban on the dispensing and sale of alcohol products.
If you are a tavern owner in Ivory Park, Tembisa, you will this morning walk past a closed tavern from which you normally entertain your patrons.
The new reality brought about by Ramaphosa’s announcement leaves a bitter taste in your mouth and condemns your entire family to an uncertain future.
It is for this and other reasons that the government’s decision to suspend economic activity through the ban on the sale and dispensing of alcohol has become a very confusing strategy at a time that the economy has been bleeding jobs.
Workers in the alcohol value chain - from farmers right down to the packaging suppliers and employees at local retail outlets - will again find themselves sitting at home with no income after only working for a month.
When Ramaphosa unexpectedly announced the alcohol sales ban in his address to the nation, he immediately put more than one million jobs in the created upstream and downstream of the entire alcohol industry at risk.
While we understand that the health system is under pressure as the surge of Covid-19 infections arrives, we do not believe that the legal sale of alcohol is the sole contributor to the rising rate of infections and spike in trauma cases.
Had the president consulted the industry before this announcement, we would have told him that a number of factors were at play that led to the system being under pressure.
Firstly, when he eased lockdown restrictions to alert level 4 on May 1, about 1.5 million people returned to work, and in June, when he announced the gradual reopening of the economy with a shift to level 3.8 million more people were able to go back to work.
This represents just over 50% of the country’s labour force - which means millions of people could now be on the road at any time of day.
Secondly, the abolishment of the curfew under level 3 meant that the movement of people was less regulated and social gatherings were made possible, opening the floodgates for people to be on the streets at night - holding braais and “after tears” after attending funerals.
The easing of lockdown restrictions also meant that there was an increased number of cars on the roads and car crashes spiked as a result.
Before the ink dried on the president’s speech, some science experts, who serve on the Ministerial Advisory Committee, publicly said that by banning alcohol sales on the one hand, and allowing taxis to load at full capacity for local trips, the government was going about it the wrong way.
The industry is very supportive of the decision to reinstate night curfew as this limits the unnecessary movement of people and social gatherings.
The route that the government has taken is rather harsh and puts an industry that was already under pressure due to the pandemic on its knees.
The sales ban also gives space to the illicit liquor market to flourish.
Ntimane is the national convener for the National Liquor Traders’ Council.