As South Africa entered its seventh week of lockdown, Democratic Alliance (DA) interim leader John Steenhuisen claimed that the country was no longer dealing with a coronavirus (Covid-19) crisis but rather an African National Congress (ANC) lockdown crisis.  

On Friday Steenhuisen called for the national lockdown to end.

He warned that the lockdown was going to cost the country more lives than it would save and he warned President Cyril Ramaphosa that South Africans would take matters into their own hands if the lockdown did not end.

“This is a self-inflicted catastrophe far, far greater than anything the virus could throw at us. Mr President, by creating this lockdown crisis, you have broken your sacred compact with the people of South Africa. You have weaponised our trust in you and turned it against us. Instead of trusting us back, you have devastated lives and livelihoods through brutality and coercion,” he said.

Steenhuisen went on to accuse Ramaphosa of turning the free citizens of South Africa into subjects of an authoritarian government.

He said the DA’s phased approach of getting sectors back into operation balanced the flattening of the infection curve with the safe opening of the economy.

“Under this approach, the three steps that we all must do – wearing masks, washing hands and maintaining physical distance – are still critical,” Steenhuisen explained.

Under the DA’s plan, extensive testing would be undertaken to identify where the virus had spread wildly, and localised lockdowns would be instituted to contain the spread.

“At the same time, we protect the elderly and others who are at risk as far as possible through isolation. And then the rest of us get back to work, where every business in every sector will have comprehensive safety regulations in place which they will have to comply with,” Steenhuisen said.

Dismissing the level 4 regulations as “simply a longer list of rules and a curfew”, he said it was heart-breaking to see so many people suffering.

The DA paid tribute to those who lost their lives to the virus, and the party sent their condolences to their friends and families of the victims.

“But what makes this even more heart-breaking is the fact that much of the hardship we’re going through is unnecessary. In our efforts to fight off a very real threat, we have replaced it with an even bigger threat of our own making. The real tragedy playing out here is no longer the coronavirus, but the lockdown itself,” he highlighted.

He explained that the lockdown was instituted to buy the health sector time to equip itself.

“We weren’t trying to stop all Covid-19 infections. We weren’t trying to kill the virus. We were simply giving our hospitals time to prepare. To give our healthcare workers the best possible chance of dealing with the inevitable wave of infections when it finally hit us,” he continued.

He said South Africans have more than done their bit in the fight against the coronavirus.

“They have been asked to sacrifice, and they have done so. Many have lost all they had. They have sat diligently in their homes as our country’s economy slowly crumbled around them, waiting for the news that the hospitals and the doctors were ready and we could resume our lives,” Steenhuisen said.

He added that thousands of businesses have either already closed down, or are about to and said they were lifelines for employees and their families.

He asserted that the lockdown had caused damage which would see an entire generation of South Africans living in destitution and suffering.

“We can’t undo any of this. We can’t turn back the clock. What we can do is act now to end this lockdown crisis and get as many of us back to work as safely as possible. That is the only way we will ensure that, once we have defeated this virus, we have a country left to rebuild,” he ended.