TUCOSWA BACKS SA MOVE TO LEVEL 3

MBABANE – South Africa took a step in the right direction in reverting to Level 3. 

This is a feeling that was shared by Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA) Secretary General Mduduzi Gina when sought for comment on the reviewed restrictions announced by South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday. 

South Africa will, for the next two weeks, be under an adjusted Level 3 lockdown, as hospitals struggle to cope with the resurgence of COVID-19 cases. 

New regulations regarding the sale of alcohol, curfew, social gatherings and access to beaches were gazetted  yesterday. 

South Africa has over one million COVID-19 cases and about 850 000 recoveries, while over 27 000 people have succumbed to the virus. 

Gina said this was an act of a pro-active government considering that the COVID-19 situation was worse than when the neighbouring country was in total lockdown. 

He said the COVID-19 situation was like staring the devil in the eye and it was a matter of life and death. 

“What South Africa did was necessary under the circumstances. The decisions may be out of the normal but it’s a matter of choosing life over death, being influenced by what is unfolding daily as far as the COVID-19 pandemic is concerned,” he said. 

Without saying Eswatini should be copycats, Gina said the country should consider introducing some restrictions in the same manner South Africa did. 

However, he mentioned that South Africa was lucky in the sense that they had intervention programmes to mitigate the situation. 

He zoomed in on the prohibition of alcohol in the neighbouring country, stating that the country would not be wrong to ban alcohol because it was common cause and might not need scientific proof that when under the influence of alcohol, people tended to be reckless and inconsiderate of their health and that of the people around them. 

“People are in a celebratory mood at this time of the year and they use that as their defence while putting their lives and those of the people around them at risk. It was a step in the right direction for South Africa to introduce these curfews and minimise the risks for its citizens,” he said. 

Sibongile Mazibuko, President of the Ngwane National Liberatory Congress (NNLC) said economically, for Eswatini to survive, although it was not a sovereign State, the country’s economic dependency to South Africa did not give government an option not to follow on what the neighbouring country had done. She said that made South Africa a big brother.

“Eswatini is not a copy cat but it is being realistic for survival purposes and until such time that the country is economically independent, it needs to adhere to what South Africa is implementing, which is informed by Eswatini’s economical dependency on South Africa,” she shared. 

Mazibuko made an example that Eswatini gets about 40 per cent of its income from the Southern African Custom Union (SACU), where South Africa is the major player and the country is not even a role player. She said on that note, it was wise to do likewise. 

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