Government actually got it right with new Covid regulations

It’s not every day that I give props to our leadership but it’s high time they started realizing the ability of the private sector to do a better job than they can.

Maybe it’s not fair to put that on the private sector, since we’re talking about employers and government is a pretty massive employer, but you get what I mean.

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We’ve seen regulation upon regulation, with the state trying to force us into doing things, or not doing things, that they have very little ability to regulate.

I mean seriously, how many cops can patrol the streets at a given time to make sure curfew isn’t being broken?

How many inspectors can investigate whether ciggies are being sold or whether the speakeasy industry hasn’t made a comeback?

Sure in the height of the chaos we were shooting in the dark. but a month in, it was painfully obvious that there’s no way the state could be the lone ranger to fight against Covid.

So what of these new regulations? What’s so special about them?

For a start, they’re less about the government doing much, and more about the government saying to employers, ‘Hey! Here, you can do this for us.’

I rarely see regulations that empower private actors to, y’know, do what they feel is best in terms of their staff policy, but here we finally have it.

Here we have regulations that compel employers to have a Covid policy, tells them what to consider, and then pretty much leaves them to it.

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If after consideration, an employer isn’t in favour of doing much to fight Covid, that’s their call.

If they believe they need to set up stricter measures, here’s a document that lets them do that.

There’s even a wonderful inclusion that allows people to refuse to work if the employer decides to do little and the employee feels unsafe.

To the disdain of the anti-vax crowd, the opposite does not apply, so there’s so much to find satisfying about these regulations.

I mean, you can get a paid day off to go get vaccinated and even boosted. Lekker! Maybe not a whole day but still.

This thing of forcing people into submission has never been effective.

Instead, creating the incentives to do things allows for a less bloated state wage bill and more manageable policy, not to mention more effective outcomes.

Imagine going to home affairs to verify your ID every time you want to use your credit card.

No, you get your ID once and then the bank is empowered to verify you through your card at each transaction.

Imagine doing a 3 hour test every time you hit the gun range. No, you take the test and you can access the range for a couple of years.

Imagine companies were told who to hire instead of making it appealing to do the transformation thing through BEE… Okay, I never said it was perfect, but creating incentives to act is going to be a better position for a government to take than forcing action by law.

So here we have it. Maybe it’s an admission of authoritarian defeat.

Maybe it’s a sincerely held desire to actually have an effective long lasting fight against the pandemic.

Whatever it is, it’s something we should be happy about because it could have been something different. It could have been the head in the sand approach that the UK seemingly wants to adopt.

We can’t avoid regulation, it’s a necessity for an orderly society.

What we can control is the kind of regulation we get.

As long as it’s not sending Bheki in to “deal with” infractions, this is as excited as I’ve been for some government regulation.