SPEECH TO THE WESTERN CAPE PROVINCIAL PARLIAMENT BY BRETT HERRON, GOOD MEMBER AND SECRETARY-GENERAL
1 December 2020
WESTERN CAPE GOVERNMENT NOW IN CONFLICT WITH ITS CONSISTENT UNDERMINING OF COVID-19 LOCKDOWN
This parliament can be proud of the work done by the Ad Hoc Committee on Covid-19.
We thank the Speaker for establishing the committee, the Chairperson for the manner in which the committee was led, and all the members for the manner in which the committee exercised oversight.
We must also thank the Dr Keith Cloete and his team in the Department of Health for their hard work and dedication, but also for his frank engagement with the committee.
And we thank all those who came to the committee to brief us over the past 7 or 8 months.
Covid-19 thrust the whole world into an unprecedented period of turmoil.
Governments were compelled to make hard decisions about economic and social restrictions.
The pandemic brought out the worst and the best of political leadership.
It exposed science sceptics and political opportunists.
It tested community and society solidarity.
In the Western Cape we saw remarkable responses of solidarity and care from so many people and communities.
Shortly after lockdown was announced over 200 CANs (Community Action Networks) sprung up in Cape Town alone to support those who were vulnerable, destitute and hungry.
GOOD people reaching into their pantries and their pockets to help those who were unable to do so.
The people of this Province were overwhelmingly kind, caring and responsive. We must thank them for that.
Unfortunately there were those who were unable to find empathy and care.
In Mouille Point, in Cape Town, a couple observed hunger and desperation from their flat window, as lockdown hit the exceptionally marginalised people – those who live on the streets – hard.
When the couple started to cook for the 100-odd street people living on the Atlantic Seaboard, and to feed them from the boot of their car, they were harassed by some neighbours, by the Metro Police and by a SAPS Captain from the Sea Point Police Station.
When this intimidation didn’t stop them feeding the homeless their car was petrol bombed and totally destroyed.
It is difficult to comprehend the meanness, and hate, that leads to the bombing of car because the owners are feeding hungry people.
Of course the people were hungry, and still on the street, during the hard lockdown, because the leadership of the City of Cape Town did not act out of empathy or care.
They used the lockdown as an opportunity to clean up the streets. Rounding up homeless people and transporting them to a concentration camp.
They dumped over 1500 homeless people on a cold and damp field in remote Strandfontein where they were expected to live in marquis tents sleeping several hundred people each.
The people fled that camp from the day it was established.
That camp lasted 6 weeks and cost the people of Cape Town R53 million. It was a massive failure of compassion and leadership. It was the worst of politics.
The mean spirited leadership of the City of Cape Town didn’t end there.
When the restrictions on informal trading were lifted by the Minister of COGTA it took the City six weeks to fully implement a permitting system – trapping micro-traders in destitution – whilst the City leadership claimed it needed clarity on what the new regulations meant.
This was another failure of leadership and care. The worst of political leadership.
Two months ago South Africa moved to the lowest level of restrictions as we appeared to have relatively successfully weathered the worst and avoided overwhelming our health systems.
The early and hard lockdown is widely regarded as the right call and as having assisted our country from collapsing under the worst of possible scenarios.
But not everybody thinks so or not everybody says so.
The Leader of the DA, John Steenhuisen, said that the only thing the lockdown achieved was the devastation of our economy.
And he said “whether (we) call it Level 1, 2, 3 or 6, it doesn’t matter. It should not be there at all.”
And from early on our Premier, his government, and DA members of this parliament, started calling for the complete lifting of all restrictions prematurely and opportunistically.
The DA used the public fatigue as an opportunity to undermine the message from the National Covid Command Council and tried to introduce the words “second pandemic” as their latest catch-phrase.
The DA was unable to resist the political opportunities the restrictions presented.
And some DA leaders embraced and promoted herd immunity theories.
Now our Province faces a surge in infections. The so-called second wave. And, our Premier and his government is looking to introduce local lockdowns.
The DA and this government have consistently undermined the urgency and necessity of restrictions. Challenging just about everything.
And, now as the Premier contemplates the need for a local lockdown to contain community transmission the DA Leader says there is no evidence it works.
If the science says we must return to lockdowns then we have no choice. But the DA, who must now implement a lockdown, have destroyed their own credibility on this issue.
This is a culmination of unprincipled opportunism, conflicting messaging and political expediency.
We could have avoided this second wave if DA leadership had stuck to the script and not tried to game the system for political purposes.
This is the worst of political leadership.
ENDS