Level 3 is just a political compromise of ANC’s warring alliances, says Steenhuisen

The Democratic Alliance (DA) leader John Steenhuisen claimed on Tuesday that the lockdown Level 3 decision had “nothing to do with saving lives and everything to do with African National Congress’ (ANC) internal politics and outdated ideology”.

“It is unconscionable that the ANC government opted to move South Africa to Level 3, even as scientists advised a move to Level 1 and called lockdown a ‘blunt instrument’, as President Ramaphosa has now revealed,” he said in a statement.

Steenhuisen said the “ANC’s hard lockdown is world-record-breaking in both duration and scale of economic devastation yet millions of workers and school children and thousands of businesses were being forced to remain home against the advice of local experts.

“Either deep naivety or outright dishonesty is behind Ramaphosa’s claim that Level 3 is a middle road between the advice of South African scientists and the World Health Organisation (WHO).

“WHO’s advice is that lockdowns should only be eased as infections rates go down. Clearly, this cannot possibly pertain to South Africa, since infections here have risen even with a lockdown,” he said.

The DA leader further said the country would be in hard lockdown for many more months, since the peak of infections was only expected to be between August and September if government were to follow WHO’s advice.

“The Level 3 decision has nothing to do with saving lives, or with WHO opinions, and everything to do with ANC internal politics and outdated ideology.

“Level 3 is a result of political compromise between the warring factions of the ANC alliance. Rather than do the right thing for the country, President Ramaphosa has once again chosen ANC unity over national wellbeing.

“Key ANC clients, the public sector unions, have little incentive to get back to work, since they are on full pay anyway, while the communists in the ANC are revelling in the opportunities for ‘class suicide’ and national democratic revolution,” he added.

“Indeed, an ANC document leaked over the weekend specifically proposes for the first time the amendment of regulations to prescribe pension fund assets.”

Steenhuisen said comments from many ANC politicians over the past weeks suggest a more sanitised version of the Economic Freedom Fighters’ (EFF) vision of collapsing the “white economy”.

“This reflects a poor understanding of how an economy functions and a total disregard for the desperate situation of hunger and hopelessness that millions of households are in.

“This disregard is already on full display, with every aspect of the promised economic relief programme in a shambles, including a failure to make good on UIF, TERS and Covid-19 grant payments.

“And with the DA having to go to court to enable NGOs to continue feeding the hungry. The past six weeks of hard lockdown have been irrational,” he said.

He further said that the ANC government had failed to adjust its response to new information that has come available over the six weeks.

“In particular, falling fatality projections and mounting evidence that Covid-19 is not a major threat to healthy zero to 70-year-olds.

“The appropriate response is to protect the high-risk group and let the vast majority of South Africans get back to work with an appropriate set of safety protocols in place, to produce the tax revenue necessary to fund health, education and social grants,” he added.

Steenhuisen claimed the ANC was using people’s lives and livelihoods as pawns in their internal chess games.

“There is only one economy. It is the precious lifeblood of our society. I urge President Ramaphosa to stop smashing it to death with the ‘blunt instrument’ lockdown and start putting his country ahead of his party,” he concluded.

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