Mbalula says video of a ‘bustling Polokwane’ is fake, the real Polokwane is in lockdown
The transport minister has continued to caution the country not to believe everything they see online.
Fikile Mbalula said that they had warned the ANC about the Guptas. Picture: @fikilembalula/Twitter
Speaking on Friday at an interministerial media conference in Pretoria at a virtual media conference, Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula said a video that had gone viral allegedly showing the Limpopo capital buzzing with life due to relaxations on transport and other restrictions was fake.
He said the “real Polokwane” was in lockdown and quiet, and investigations by government had confirmed the footage in question was several years old and was not even of Polokwane.
The Citizen has not seen the video but did find a possible candidate for it on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/AzaniaGode/status/1245778575128768517?s=20
Mbalula explained why he had made concessions to the taxi industry, including to allow minibuses to be filled to 70% capacity.
“The adjustment of capacity from 50% to 70% in respect of the taxi industry and morning operating times of buses and taxis from 09h00 to 10h00 is informed by material conditions on the ground.
“One of the key unintended consequences of the 9am cut-off time in the morning was that a significant number of people get left behind in shopping malls because some of the stores like pharmacies and banks only open at 9am. This then results in large numbers of people wandering around waiting for the next window for public transport in the afternoon.”
Mbalula also explained why government had decided to relax regulations on the import of goods to allow more goods than just basic ones.
He said this would now be allowed on the basis that these goods would be sanitised, and there were important economic considerations to keep in mind, including economies of scale for import and export internationally.
“We equally revised the directions on cargo to permit the movement of all cargo, rather than limit this to essential cargo. It is imperative that we should be alive to the economic consequences of our directions, which include, among others, the inability of essential cargo to move due to the fact that carriers package such cargo together with general cargo to achieve the economies of scale. We have been working closely with the minister of trade and industry in this regard.”
The government is also not allowing passengers to travel abroad and into the country, except for very limited instances.
“Our airspace remains closed to passenger flights, with exceptions made for authorised flights either repatriating foreign nationals or bringing South Africans stranded in foreign countries home.”
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