Covid-19: Cyril Ramaphosa postpones his first meeting as AU chair

Amid a series of cancellations of government events and meetings, President Cyril Ramaphosa has postponed a planned meeting with commissioners of the African Union (AU) on Thursday.

Ramaphosa was elected chairperson of the AU earlier this year.

“The president is leading the national command council, which meets three times a week to co-ordinate the multisectoral response to Covid-19,” said his spokesperson Khusela Diko on Tuesday.

He was meant to meet the commissioners on Thursday at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Diko said the AU commissioners supported the chair in running the commission and were responsible for implementing all decisions, policies and programmes across eight portfolios that included peace and security, political affairs, social affairs, trade and industry, and human resources, science and technology.

“The meeting was due to discuss the programme of work of the African Union for the current year and would have been the president’s first meeting with commissioners since assuming the chair in February 2020,” she said.

The meeting is now expected to take place in April.

After announcing a state of national disaster on Sunday, Ramaphosa said all non-essential travel across all spheres of government would be cancelled.

Gatherings of over 100 people have also been banned, meaning that government-led public events have been cancelled.