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Covid-19 looms large, from PPE corruption and legislative proposals to a freezing aircon

Covid-19 looms large, from PPE corruption and legislative proposals to a freezing aircon
Marianne Merten
By Marianne Merten
22 Oct 2020
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Skirting opposition questions on Covid-19 tender corruption and those implicated in ANC ranks, Deputy President David ‘DD’ Mabuza said law enforcement agencies had to be given the time and space to act. His refrain? No one is above the law.

Thursday was Day 210 of South Africa’s Covid-19 lockdown and the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) wants a change in the law: Parliament must oversee a State of Disaster — and approve related regulations — just as it oversees a State of Emergency so the Cabinet is held to account.

“We experienced with the State of Disaster significant inroads to human rights without accountability to Parliament… Because of the significant impact on people’s lives a State of Disaster must be treated as seriously as a State of Emergency,” said FF+ leader Pieter Groenewald, calling for public comment on his Private Member’s Bill. 

The proposed FF+ amendment to the Disaster Management Act outlines an initial 21-day period, after which any extensions of up to three months must be approved by Parliament — the first time by a simple majority and subsequently with 60% support of the National Assembly.

The proposal is based on Section 37 of the Constitution on a State of Emergency that expressly states that the rights to life, privacy and the right not to be tortured or treated inhumanely can never be limited.

Since 15 March 2020, when the Covid-19 national State of Disaster was declared, it has always been renewed — monthly since mid-June when the initial maximum permissible three-month period expired.

The government said it would be renewed every month for as long as it was necessary, with various ministers citing various reasons, including the need to protect the healthcare system, that the pandemic had not yet ended, that it now was a fait accompli, or, most recently, fears of renewed Covid-19 spikes or a second wave.

In practice, however, the official government gazette notice is shy on details. Every State of Disaster one-month extension since July 2020 uses the phrase — “taking into account the need to continue augmenting the existing legislation and contingency arrangements undertaken by organs of state to address the impact of the disaster”.

Or as Minister in the Presidency Jackson Mthembu put it at Thursday’s briefing on the week’s Cabinet meeting — the extension of the State of Disaster “will enable government to further minimise the spread of the virus”.

As South Africa adapted to what Cabinet calls the “new normal of coexisting with Covid-19 and a possible resurgence”, Wednesday’s ministerial discussions seem to have noted the decline in physical distancing and mask wearing.

“We are very concerned as Cabinet in many areas people have stopped wearing masks. We appeal to our people in the townships, the informal settlements, to wear masks to protect themselves, their family, their loved ones… their communities,” said Mthembu.

And while technology has allowed such interactions in these physically distanced Covid-19 times, technology scuppered Deputy President David “DD” Mabuza’s question time. Five minutes in, DA Chief Whip Natasha Mazzone got up on a point of order to request a delay so the “technical issues” could be sorted. No one could hear what Mabuza was saying.

Back to the legislative front in Parliament. 

The handling of the public hearings on a trio of gender-based violence draft laws was sharply criticised in Thursday’s programming committee when the EFF raised questions over the selection of who got to make presentations to the justice committee. 

It seems the ANC Women’s League had its slot on the public hearing roster, but the EFF did not. Having been asked to show email proof that the EFF had applied to make presentations in person, the party was assured it would also get a slot.

But that wasn’t it, EFF MP Veronica Mente argued. It was that the committee itself did not make those decisions, but that the choices were made, so to speak, behind closed doors. And that, the programming committee agreed, was not how it should be done.

House Chairperson for Committees Cedric Frolick said he’d take this up because “it can’t be the committee secretary decides. If it needs to be corrected it will be corrected.” National Assembly Speaker Thandi Modise emphasised committee processes had to be open. “If you give one political party space, then space must be given to all political parties (unless they say it’s not needed)…”

It’s an important intervention given that several controversial draft laws are before Parliament — from the National Health Insurance Bill to the final round of public hearings on the constitutional amendment for compensationless expropriation, and the Expropriation Bill.

Like most parliamentary proceedings, the public hearings on the GBV Bills, as this bundle of priority legislation has become known, are hosted on virtual platforms and broadcast via social media.

And while technology has allowed such interactions in these physically distanced Covid-19 times, technology scuppered Deputy President David “DD” Mabuza’s question time. Five minutes in, DA Chief Whip Natasha Mazzone got up on a point of order to request a delay so the “technical issues” could be sorted. No one could hear what Mabuza was saying.

Minutes later, Mabuza was audibly back. He spoke for more than three hours — on land, on the economic reconstruction and recovery plan, on Eskom tariffs and malfeasance, and on Covid-19.

Perhaps thoughts of rising Covid-19 infections in the northern hemisphere heading into winter were triggered by a chilly aircon in the House. Some two-and-a-half hours into the deputy presidential Q&A, ANC Chief Whip Pemmy Majodina, sitting in the House, had an interjection of a special type: “It’s freezing cold here. We don’t want to be statistics.”

By then the deputy president had repeatedly sidestepped persistent opposition questions on the involvement of the politically connected in Covid-19 tender corruption, alongside civil servants in ANC administrations. One question directly asked what the ANC intended to do about its Secretary-General Ace Magashule.

No, he couldn’t answer for the ANC; for that the governing party had spokespeople.

“Whether I’m deputy president, whether I am the secretary-general, I’m not above the law of this country…”

And so Mabuza stayed on message. Yes, the government had “been caught napping” on Covid-19 tender corruption, but now steps to deal with that were under way.

“All we can say is that irregardless [sic] of your standing in society, the law, it’s above all of us. No one is above the law of the country,” was Mabuza’s reply to an earlier question on Covid-19 corruption and the politically connected. “Our law enforcement agencies can arrest anyone. Our law enforcement agencies can act on anyone without fear or favour.”

And so it went. DM

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