Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, has announced revised regulations for South Africa’s lockdown.

In a media briefing on Thursday (16 April), Dlamini-Zuma said that the lockdown will be lifted in an incremental manner and that restrictions will remain in place even once the lockdown is lifted.

“Because we are going to be opening the lockdown in an orderly matter, we will be naming the areas which will opened from the lockdown,” said Dlamini-Zuma. “The lockdown cannot be stopped abruptly.”

Because of this, Dlamini-Zuma said the new regulations are mainly an ‘addition’ to the current regulations which were first introduced before the lockdown was extended.

Some of the new changes include:

-The transportation of essential goods are permitted from warehousing sites to essential service providers with the exception of the transportation of liquor;
-Plumbers and electricians will be allowed to visit homes to fix broken utilities;
-ICT professionals are now considered essential workers where they assist essential services using technology;
-Retail call centres are now considered part of essential services because of the work they do around short-term insurance and store accounts;
-Stores selling hardware products & vehicle components may open but must maintain a register of persons buying essential goods listed in Part A of Annexure B of the Regulations, and must keep a record of a signed declaration;
-A person requesting for a permit to attend a funeral must produce a death certificate, a certified copy of the death certificate, or a digital copy of the death certificate to the head of court or to a station commander;
-Restrictions on exports have been eased so that the country’s ports are not congested when the lockdown is lifted;
-The only alcohol which may be transported is for commercial purposes such as hand sanitisers;
-All the mines that supply Eskom must be fully operational and refineries should work at full capacity;
-The introduction of strict conditions around the screening and testing of miners who return to work.

Cabinet has also confirmed that it is finalising a socio-economic recovery plan for after the Covid-19 national lockdown which is set to be discussed on Monday (20 April).

All the Cabinet clusters have been asked to work together to produce one consolidated document on key priorities of the country’s economic recovery plan, it said in a statement on Thursday (16 April).

Cabinet has also directed Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan to prepare an updated report on South African Airways, for discussion at the upcoming meeting. Thereafter, Cabinet will finalise the country’s economic recovery plan, it said.

Source: Business Tech