How much more must our people lose? When the second and third waves of Covid-19 broke, President Cyril Ramaphosa, on live television, blamed everyone except himself and his government for the mess in which the country found itself.
At the last “family meeting” he blatantly shifted the blame of the government’s glaring failures (vaccinations being a case in point) and resorted to all but pinning the third wave on ordinary South Africans.
The president and his pack of government wolves are mulling tighter restrictions. Some inner circles are calling for a total lockdown of South Africa.
But no one is answering the question of what happened to the resources allocated to create enough alternative venues to accommodate those affected as hospital beds fill to capacity.
What happened to the government’s places of care that were created in stadiums and old factories in order to cater for the sick and the homeless during the second wave?
What happened to the funds the country borrowed from the International Monetary Fund and the African Development Bank to combat Covid19?
After 18 months, where are the preparations by our health-care sector in order to ensure that hospitals are not strained?
Why are officials acting as if the third wave was not predicted, and now want to convince us that only a level five lockdown can stop it?
They failed to plan ahead and expect ordinary citizens to take the blame for their failures.
Many people have lost their source of income, so much has been taken away and there seems to be no recovery plan to get people’s lives back on track. Youth unemployment is at a staggering 70%.
We call on the president to account and stop behaving like a victim of circumstances, because we know that he is not.
Eighteen months later, not even 2% of the population has been vaccinated, but we are expected to believe something is being done.
It is time to stop indulging Ramaphosa’s public relations machinery and hold him accountable, for the sake of people’s livelihoods.
The Star