Ramaphosa impressed with KZN’s Covid-19 interventions
While impressed with the provincial government’s Covid-19 interventions, he believes more still needs to be done.
With the country’s first Covid-19 case confirmed in the province two months ago, currently sitting at 1 106 cases and with the highest number of Covid-19 related deaths, KZN is amongst the provinces which were the hardest hit by the Covid-19 outbreak.
President Cyril Ramaphosa applauded the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government’s health and economic initiatives in response to Covid-19 lockdown, despite not overthrowing the virus just yet.
This after KZN premier Sihle Zikalala presented the provincial government’s Covid-19 interventions to Ramaphosa on Wednesday.
Ramaphosa said although the province achieved remarkable health strives it still needed to better equip the health system in preparation for the anticipated high rise in infections.
He said health centres set up by the provincial government for Covid-19 cases was a good idea.
“I would like to see more of these testing facilities and more beds. We have to plan for the worst, we are told the worst is yet to come and KZN is highly populated. We need to gear up for an expected increase in transmissions,” he said.
While preparing for a hike in transmissions, he said people needed to lessen the pace by continuing practising social distancing and wearing masks.
Ramaphosa touched on the issue of water scarcity that has hit the province and said the provincial government had a successful short-term water supply that can assist residences to access water during the lockdown.
He said the government needed to draw up a long-term plan that will enable water supply beyond the Covid-19 outbreak.
The Covid-19 outbreak shed much needed light on the prioritisation of hygiene. Ramaphosa said as the country eases lockdown levels, a campaign to “clean up our country” will start.
“We now need to embark on a massive campaign to clean SA up.”
This campaign would target issues such as waste dumping areas that are in the wrong places, sewage and disinfection of public areas amongst others.
“There is no reason why our people should continue to live in unhygienic places”.
The KZN provincial government set up its own economic relief fund aside from the national one, news Ramaphosa was happy to hear.
He said Covid-19 has dealt a huge blow to the economy and a restoring plan was needed.
He said part of the R500-billion relief package announced last month will also address some of the economic setbacks.
Ramaphosa applauded the KZN provincial government’s initiatives set to uplift the economy.
“Covid-19 is giving us an opportunity to re-look our economic side and for us South Africans to see how we can construct our economy after the coronavirus.
“We need to put pillars in place for a new economy. We need to find new sectors. We need to find and create jobs for many of our people who are going to lose their jobs.
“We need to ask ourselves what is the new vision for our country and what is the new economic strategy. The buildings blocks are already in place, we now need to put them together.
He said an important principle in the new economic strategy must be innovation.
“The economic future must ensure that the growth we have is inclusive, it must also be empowering to women, young people and to black people.
“Radical economic transformation must underpin the economic future we will need going forward.”
He said in the rebuilding of the economy, SA must find new economic ways to build state capacity.
“We need a state that is going to be capable, ethical and developmental. It must be a state that is innovative. We must be willing to utilise technology.”
Ramaphosa highlighted the remarkable technological contribution towards communication channels during the lockdown as one of the areas the country needs to cash in on.
He added that the government needed to support the education sector as it was also “massively” affected by the lockdown as Zikalala pointed out.
Communication between national and provincial government to ensure the government’s plan is essential.
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