Opposition party Democratic Alliance (DA) interim leader John Steenhuisen has blamed the prolonging of the national lockdown by the South African government on what he says is a lack of courage.                  

He was responding to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s address on Wednesday in which he announced the country could drop to Level 3 of the lockdown by the end of May, but that some parts of the country with higher Covid-19 infection rates could remain at Level 4.

Steenhuisen said South Africans were left bitterly disappointed by the President and added that remaining in hard lockdown until at least the end of May, and possibly even longer, was not good enough.

Steenhuisen said the DA has already instructed its lawyers to challenge the discriminatory use of the Covid emergency relief fund which his party says is biased.

He added that their lawyers will also file papers in the High Court challenging the rationality of the night curfew, the ban on e-commerce and the restriction on exercise hours.

“Remaining imprisoned by a night curfew enforced by armed soldiers is not good enough. Remaining subjected to a slew of irrational, petty regulations that do nothing but kill businesses and turn decent people into criminals is not good enough. And having all of these decisions passed down by a secretive sub-group of the Executive with no clearly defined authority is certainly not good enough,” said Steenhuisen, referring to the National Coronavirus Command Council.  

He questioned the reason for the lockdown if its purpose was to ramp up the country’s healthcare capacity and expand testing programmes. 

Steenhuisen said there was clear evidence that the lockdown achieved its objective of delaying the spread of Covid-19 and avoiding a massive surge in infections.

He blamed government for deliberately destroying thousands of businesses and millions of jobs by prolonging the lockdown.  

“We cannot remain trapped by fear of a rising curve. Because the curve will rise, and it will rise by a lot. We must know this, and we must accept it. And we must trust that the curve will rise by less than if we’d had no lockdown at all,” he stated.  

The DA has resolved to take action by going to court to overturn every decision and every regulation that it considers irrational or immoral.