One step away from house arrest, plus 5 highlights from 'Vrye Weekblad'
Here's what's hot in the latest edition of the Afrikaans digital weekly
On May 1, SA will take its first tentative steps on the road to more economic activity, president Cyril Ramaphosa announced on Thursday.
The announcement comes just in time to stop the growing revolt against the lockdown, but there are still questions about government's management of the crisis.
On paper, it looks like a balanced, intelligent programme to slowly ease the lockdown and is based on the research and advice of experts and scientists.
The devil is in the detail of the programme to phase out the lockdown, though. Ramaphosa said cabinet ministers would decide how it will be rolled out and would communicate it to the public, and judged by our experiences of the past four weeks, it doesn't look hopeful that they'd get it right.
On a ministerial and bureaucratic level the handling of the crisis has been dogmatic, authoritarian and irrational.
Basic mistakes have been made, such as not taking into account the role of the informal sector in the economy, the ban on cigarette sales that created a massive smuggling market and the ban on the sale of cooked food.
Ministers were too egotistical to admit these mistakes and fix them, writes Max du Preez in this week's edition of Afrikaans digital weekly Vrye Weekblad.
But, regardless of all the problems and shortcomings, the measures implemented by government so far could be regarded as successful in the delaying of the spread of infection, allowing hospitals to prepare, isolation centres to be created and equipment to be sourced before we are hit by the worst of the pandemic.
The government's ambitious R500bn package to rescue the economy from collapse, help small businesses survive and prevent famine was widely welcomed.
But the warning immediately came from all over the country: Just make sure the politicians don't steal the money.