NDZ defends decision to close beaches in court papers

Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has defended the festive season beach closures, saying it’s a matter of lives versus livelihoods.

“Given the rapid increase of positive [coronavirus] cases in the Garden Route district, the potential loss of lives far  outweighs the purported dire consequences,” she said in ppers filed in the High Court in Pretoria. She was responding to an urgent bid by the Great Brak River Business Forum (GBRBF) and AfriForum, represented by Hurter
Spies Inc, to reopen the beaches.

They describe the situation as “an irremediable financial decline, a concomitant surge in unemployment and  disastrous socioeconomic consequences generally”.

On Monday last week, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced all beaches in the Eastern Cape and on the Garden Route – declared Covid-19 hotspots – would be closed over the festive season and that beaches in KwaZulu-Natal would be closed on what were traditionally their busiest days.

The announcement has led to widespread concerns about the impact on tourism, and the regulations governing beach closures – which the minister Gazetted last Tuesday – are the subject of no fewer than four different court cases in the country. GBRBF wants them declared unconstitutional, unlawful and invalid.

The minister highlighted the toll the Covid-19 pandemic was taking on police and warned of the potential  consequences of reopening beaches with a limited law enforcement capacity.

“In the hotspot areas, the members of the South African Police Services have seen an increase … in the number of Covid-19 positive cases. This has negatively impacted law enforcement’s capacity to monitor compliance,” she said.

“Without sufficient capacity to police compliance with non-pharmaceutical preventative measures, overcrowded beaches can become super-spreader locations.”

The minister said government was trying to strike a balance. She emphasised the importance of ensuring the country’s healthcare system remained “functional and effective” and pointed to data which suggested hospitals on the Garden Route would “soon reach saturation and [be] unable to admit patients who require urgent care”.

“While accepting that there will be an economic effect on the tourism sector, such effect is but one consideration that government must take into account on an ongoing basis in deciding how to deal with the raging pandemic,” she said.

“The state was and remains constitutionally obliged to act to prevent Covid-19 from killing hundreds of thousands of people and from leaving hundreds of thousands of others permanently affected by the lasting effects of [the virus] on the human body, the full effects of which are still unknown”.

The case is expected to be heard on Tuesday.

– bernadettew@citizen.co.za

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