ROB ROSE: Don’t think it’s the end of the nanny state
Loading player...
If you think President Cyril Ramaphosa’s decision to lift the ban on cigarettes and alcohol from tomorrow means an abrupt end of the nanny state, you’re likely to be sorely disappointed.
This, at least, is the impression you get by reading the legal papers filed by government leaders, notably cooperative governance minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, in various court actions across the country. (As the prohibition is lifted, some of these lawsuits will fall away — but not all.)
It is Dlamini Zuma’s casual admission in the case involving the wine farms — “I did not invite public comments prior to the [prohibition, but] I am advised and submit that there is no general obligation to consult in respect of executive action” — that is more revealing.
In other words, we’re deciding what’s best for you, and it’s not up for discussion.
It’s a sentiment captured ( by News24’s Pieter du Toit, whose on-the-spot analysis of Ramaphosa’s speech on Saturday night is fantastic. “South Africa’s five months of democratic centralism on steroids will largely come to an end on Monday morning,” he writes.
Du Toit recounts how the lockdown gradually lost legitimacy, in inverse proportion to the number of petty regulations implemented. For example, Ramaphosa and Dlamini Zuma didn’t take questions from journalists, but rather “decreed changes to South Africans’ lives without explaining what the scientific advice and empirical evidence were behind the regulations”.
(The article is behind News24’s new paywall, but it’s well worth the R75/month.)
It is a real decline
Partly due to its abysmal communication, South Africans are widely skeptical of anything the government says at this point. Some don’t even believe that SA’s Covid-19 experience is actually improving, and instead think Ramaphosa was leant on by business to ease the lockdown.
But as Ferial Haffajee writes in an excellent analysis ( in the Daily Maverick, there is reason to believe we’re over the peak.
She quotes Dr Ridhwaan Suliman, of the CSIR, who argues that the seven-day rolling averages of infections, down from 12,000 cases to 5,000 per day, shows “it is a real decline”.
Suliman says while SA is also conducting fewer tests, the positivity rate (that is, new cases as a percentage of new tests) is dropping, while it’s now taking 64-days for infections to double, rather than the 14-days it was taking in June.
And while it’s true that SA’s 587,345 infections puts it ...
This, at least, is the impression you get by reading the legal papers filed by government leaders, notably cooperative governance minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, in various court actions across the country. (As the prohibition is lifted, some of these lawsuits will fall away — but not all.)
It is Dlamini Zuma’s casual admission in the case involving the wine farms — “I did not invite public comments prior to the [prohibition, but] I am advised and submit that there is no general obligation to consult in respect of executive action” — that is more revealing.
In other words, we’re deciding what’s best for you, and it’s not up for discussion.
It’s a sentiment captured ( by News24’s Pieter du Toit, whose on-the-spot analysis of Ramaphosa’s speech on Saturday night is fantastic. “South Africa’s five months of democratic centralism on steroids will largely come to an end on Monday morning,” he writes.
Du Toit recounts how the lockdown gradually lost legitimacy, in inverse proportion to the number of petty regulations implemented. For example, Ramaphosa and Dlamini Zuma didn’t take questions from journalists, but rather “decreed changes to South Africans’ lives without explaining what the scientific advice and empirical evidence were behind the regulations”.
(The article is behind News24’s new paywall, but it’s well worth the R75/month.)
It is a real decline
Partly due to its abysmal communication, South Africans are widely skeptical of anything the government says at this point. Some don’t even believe that SA’s Covid-19 experience is actually improving, and instead think Ramaphosa was leant on by business to ease the lockdown.
But as Ferial Haffajee writes in an excellent analysis ( in the Daily Maverick, there is reason to believe we’re over the peak.
She quotes Dr Ridhwaan Suliman, of the CSIR, who argues that the seven-day rolling averages of infections, down from 12,000 cases to 5,000 per day, shows “it is a real decline”.
Suliman says while SA is also conducting fewer tests, the positivity rate (that is, new cases as a percentage of new tests) is dropping, while it’s now taking 64-days for infections to double, rather than the 14-days it was taking in June.
And while it’s true that SA’s 587,345 infections puts it ...
