Ramaphosa notes ‘huge hit to economy’, urges KZN to continue virus fight

While outlining the progress in responding to the Covid-19 pandemic in KwaZulu Natal, President Cyril Ramaphosa lauded the province for demonstrating its ability to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic.

“You have set up the right structures to properly address the challenges we are facing.”

He commended the province for addressing the distress in the province from the announcement of the lockdown.

Utilising the certain pillars, the province was able to address the issue within households which were in distress.

He noted that the economy was dealt a huge blow as a result of the pandemic with the lives of citizens largely affected.

“…We are not out of the woods, but the way Health Minister Zweli Mkhize led us has positioned us well globally.”

Listing some of the issues faced by the province, he urged the province to increase the number of beds to accommodate patients as the province was highly populated.

“I’m pleased to see that in KZN you have done a great deal to deal with the challenge but I would like to see more. I’d like to see more beds.”

There was money allocated from national level to provide more beds as a measure to plan for the worst as government was informed that more people would be infected across the country.

Water was also a major challenge for KwaZulu-Natal and a long term solution needed to be addressed.

“The time has now arrived for us to clean up South Africa, to deal with the issue of waste dumps scattered across the country. We will need to embark on a massive campaign to clean up places such as taxi ranks.

“We’ve been fighting an invisible enemy and now we must focus on a post-war situation. We’ve got to begin to put in place pillars of a new economy.

“We now need to embark on a massive campaign to clean up the country.”

(Compiled by Gopolang Moloko)

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