Dear President,
We thank you for taking the time and the effort in trying to explain why the current rules and regulations surrounding the fight of the coronavirus pandemic should be what they are, but we see that your letter to your fellow South Africans lacks any real argument, seems staged, a lip service for another power at best.
Your people are tired to suffer an enormous hardship due to regulations that make no sense and have also no effect. Do not understand me wrong, South Africans are tough as nails and will go for you to hell and back if necessary, but exactly: if necessary only.
A revolution will not come from the bottom, your people will not revert to public civil disobedience, but they will find ways to survive … outside the regulatory framework you are trying to defend.
The revolution must come from the top, from you, the President! End the self-righteous terror regime of the National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC) and the NEC, take the Public Protector as your shield and plough through their ranks, suspend their members pending a parliamentary commission to investigate their actions and motivations during the pandemic and you will see that nothing has changed since “Guptagate”.
You have friends and support right across the country and down to the last street corner, they have no friends and whoever supports and defends them is either bought or coerced.
The current ways of handling the pandemic with lockdown stages is not working, or do you really think 11 million smokers gave up smoking? They all continue to smoke, buy the cigarettes illegally, no effect achieved, only revenue for the state lost and money that could go into the real economy has been spent and continues to be spent on the black market.
Review the companies that are not allowed to work – even if from home – your people need to get back to work, earn an income as the UIF, TERS, SMME support programmes are a failure with late, missing and double payments and so far not even 10% of those who sit without income have been assisted. The rules are complex the conditions xenophobic and difficult to meet. Abolish Citizenship and BEE as qualification criteria, your foreigners and all the African immigrants, who have served food and drinks to the public, made the beds for our tourists and drove scores of people around in Uber, Bolt and Taxis should not be punished for being still here, they should be commended, not starving.
Use Mboweni’s budgets and your vision to assist the SME to stay on their feet, we will not be able to deal with unemployment rates above 50% as the crime levels will be atrocious and we will see daily the attack and looting of facilities that contain food as it is easier than currently queueing for up to 15 hours to receive the food aid parcels.
Unite the NGOs, locally and internationally, under your wing and start making a difference in the everyday lives of your people, who have been demoted to the level of beggars while watching the members of the NCCC drinking champagne or been caught drunk on social media.
The world is there to help South Africa even though they are waging their own wars against the virus, but that does not mean to borrow this country into a deadly debt trap in foreign currency. Ask for their material aids, there are thousands of companies that manufacture what we need, testing kits, protective gear and hospital equipment. It does not make a difference if Denel is now manufacturing ventilators except for the associated NCCC publicity stunt, call on the local businesses to start manufacturing. Those who cannot work non-essentially, can sow masks, cut PVC Screens, some might even be able to build ventilators.
Show the people what made you their President, compassion, ethical standards and the unbroken will to support rather them than the people that currently surround you.
The time to re-establish democracy and to act constitutionally is now!