South Africans have been through a lot in the past two years. From the first Covid-19 case on March 5 2020 we’ve had “family meetings” with President Cyril Ramaphosa, been ordered indoors unless absolutely necessary, told we could only buy booze from Mondays to Thursdays (if we could do so at all). We even had a song produced about “when people zol”, in response to the reasoning behind the controversial cigarette ban.
When Covid-19 hit SA, the government went into overdrive in its bid to curb the spread of the virus, often causing mass confusion and, in the longer term, huge economic hardship. Some of the most bizarre moments of the past two years are worth revisiting.
Cooked chickens and short pants
Among the unusual directives and regulations was the ban on the sale of cooked food, such as chicken and pies. There were also the much-derided regulations in May 2020, during alert level 4, which provided direction on the type of clothing, footwear and bedding that could be sold. Remember those? We could only buy closed-toe flat shoes and shirts, and only short-sleeved or long-sleeved shirts that were displayed and promoted to be worn under jackets, coats and/or knitwear. You couldn’t buy shorts or slops, which for Durbanites in particular didn’t make sense.
Cigarette and tobacco smokers, and those who indulge in alcohol, were among the hardest hit during levels 4 and 5 of the lockdown, when the sale of these products was prohibited. So controversial were these rules that court cases were launched against them, not to mention various litigation against the ban on alcohol sales, which happened four times.
At least the Western Cape high court, in December 2020, declared the regulation banning the sale of tobacco products was invalid. The court made the ruling long after Cogta minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma removed the ban, but it was, nonetheless, an important ruling that would prevent it happening again.
South Africans found a way to cope with the alcohol bans, many resorting to home brewing. The combination of pineapple, sugar and yeast can result in an alcoholic brew with a kick.
On the first day of lockdown in March 2020, the Johannesburg fresh produce market sold about 10,000 pineapples. On April 6 and 7 that year, a few days before the Easter weekend, 60,000 were sold, reported BusinessLIVE.
But among the criticism, there was support for the ban.
“Our hospitals are reporting they no longer have people arriving there with stab wounds, gunshot wounds and wounds sustained in motor vehicle accidents,” said Gauteng premier David Makhura.
The army steps in
Ramaphosa deployed thousands of soldiers to support of other government departments and cooperate with the SAPS to prevent crime and enforce lockdown restrictions.
But it wasn’t smooth sailing. The presence of soldiers had some horrific outcomes, with people accusing them of brutality against those not complying with regulations. The case of Collins Khosa was the most publicised. He was assaulted, tortured and murdered by members of the security forces at his home in Alexandra on April 10 2020.
The Independent Police Investigating Directorate (Ipid) informed parliament in May that year that it received 828 complaints against police in the first few weeks of lockdown. Of those, 376 could be directly linked to lockdown operations. Most (280) were for alleged assault and 10 for deaths as a result of police action.
It wasn’t all bad ...
There were some good things to come out of the Covid-19 challenges, one being that hospitals did, for the most part, ready themselves to accept a deluge of patients.
There were reduced road deaths during the Easter period in 2020 as most cross-border travel was banned. Hospitals reported fewer trauma admissions to emergency wards during level 5.
Our scientists also showed they were among the best in the world.
Of course, corruption would come in
Corrupt deals related to Covid-19 contracts did not take long to become part of the picture.
The advent of the virus meant most government departments departed from the usual procurement processes to acquire personal protective equipment (PPE). This led to a large number of government departments not following proper processes.
Ramaphosa appointed the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to investigate irregular expenditure. The unit investigated more than R5bn in questionable Covid-19 PPE tenders. The rand value of actual cash and/or assets recovered by February 4 2021 was R127m.
The biggest political casualty in the investigations conducted by the SIU was former health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize, who lost his job after it found his approval of a R150m tender to media company Digital Vibes to be unlawful.
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