Ramaphosa’s ‘lockdown nonsense regulations won’t stop us’ – Malema

EFF leader Julius Malema says there’s still a lot to be done for the youth in South Africa to be “happy”. Malema said the youth was drowning in misery faced by many challenges that the government was failing to tackle.

‘Jobs and vaccines’

Malema was speaking outside Uitsig High School in Centurion, Tshwane, where a pupil was allegedly assaulted for wearing EFF regalia for the school’s Career Day on 4 June.

Malema said: “The unemployed youth of South Africa needs jobs. [Lockdown] level 3 will not give them jobs. Gatherings will not give them jobs. What will give them jobs is a vaccine and the opening of a country. So that they can go hunting [for jobs]. We are excluded from the economy.”

The party slammed President Cyril Ramaphosa for not being clear on the vaccination rollout programme. He said it was concerning that the government still hadn’t prioritised essential workers to be vaccinated.

Police are not vaccinated. There’s no plan to vaccinate teachers who deal with millions of children every day.

“Frontline workers… those people are in danger. The nurses, the doctors and all those who work in hospitals those who were told they are a priority till today they are still struggling to vaccinate,” he said.

Now read: Malema to Sahpra: Approve Russian and Chinese vaccines or else

Lockdown level 3

Malema said the party would not listen to what Ramaphosa had to say, nor adhere to the lockdown restrictions that were imposed under lockdown Level 3.

On Tuesday, Ramaphosa announced new restrictions that would be imposed as the country moved to Level 3, which included controlling the number of people who attend indoor and outdoor gatherings.

“No one is going to stop us. No lockdown nonsense regulations are going to stop us,” Malema told the crowd.

He said they would no longer listen to anything Ramaphosa had to say about the virus or comply with any of government’s imposed lockdown regulations “until he gives us vaccines”.

Malema said it would confront the government head-on, as the party believed it was turning a blind eye to issues faced by the country.

The EFF said it would march to the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority on Friday to raise its concerns. Malema said, if they did not get a response from the regulatory authority, they would stage sleep-ins at the home of the organisation’s CEO.

“It is personal like that. There will be sleep-ins there until vaccine is provided by the government.”

Covid-19 update

According to the World Health Organisation’s most recent stats, there are currently 176 156 662 million confirmed cases of Covid-19, while 3 815 486 million people have died from the virus.

A total of 2 310,082 345 million people have been vaccinated globally, so far.

In South Africa, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said that the total number of cases in the country was currently sitting at 1 761 066 million people, while 58 087 people had died from the virus, News24 reported.

A total of 1 871 987 vaccines have been administered in the country, so far.

News24 Wire