Category: COVID-19 Corona Virus

While crime in the country continued to remain low during the COVID-19 lockdown, reported cases began to increase after the country moved to level 4 at the beginning of May.

This was revealed by Police Minister Bheki Cele on Friday while giving an update on the levels of compliance and adherence to the lockdown regulations in the country.

Despite the trends yet to be analysed, Cele said authorities believe that the slight increase is due to the relaxation of the lockdown restrictions. The easing of the lockdown has seen increased movement of people and traffic on the road as more companies have gone back to business again.

“While the figures remain low comparatively speaking, we have noted slight increases in some crime categories,” the Minister said.

Towards the end of April, while the country was on level 5, police had recorded 107 000 cases opened, while 118 000 people had been charged for contravention of the lockdown regulations.

“In just over a month, this number has more than doubled and is almost at 230 000 for contraventions,” he said.

This was for contraventions that include liquor and cigarette related offences, illegal gatherings, failure to confine to a place of residence, cross border and inter-provincial movement and business related offences.

Police, said Cele, also continue to grapple with transport related offences, which have actually gone down as the taxi industry has improved in terms of compliance, as well as fraudulent or lack of permits.

“Provinces with the highest number of arrests for contravention of the lockdown regulations almost mirror the provincial infection rates with the Western Cape in the lead, followed by Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng,” said the Minister.

During this period, arrested persons were either issued with fines or released with warning, while some are out on bail and those cases relating to more serious offences are before the respective courts in the country.

“We know that criminals are opportunistic. So organised crime syndicates have taken advantage of the lockdown especially on the ban of alcohol and cigarettes, and have expanded their illegal trade into the illegal market of illicit and counterfeit alcohol and cigarette sales,” Cele said.

Law enforcement has during the lockdown observed an increase in smuggling of liquor and cigarette contraband between South Africa’s land borders with Botswana, eSwatini, Lesotho, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, as well as the sale of these products on the black market.

“Our lockdown partners the SANDF, have disrupted some of these illegal operations, mainly along South Africa’s borders with Mozambique and Zimbabwe; and confiscated contraband including alcohol and cigarettes worth about R1.07 million in March and R1.6 million in April,” he said.

Serious and violent crime

In relation to serious and violent crime, in April, police observed that there was a dramatic decline in contact crime and trio (house and business, and hijackings) crimes category.

A comparison of the same period in 2019, is as follows for violent crimes:

Gender-based Violence and Domestic Violence

The lockdown has also seen a sharp decrease in reported GBV cases, said Cele.

On recent media reports claiming that GBV cases had gone up by 500% during the lockdown. The Minister clarified that the increase was in relation to the number of distressed calls made to the GBV Command Centre, and not necessarily reported cases.

“Actually, when we refer to gender based violence, these would cover all crimes against women and children as well as the LGBTQI community. For instance, if a woman walking to the shops is mugged and robbed at gunpoint of her personal belongings by a random suspect, that incident is recorded as a crime against a woman and therefore falls under GBV,” Cele said.

Therefore, said the Minister, for purposes of measuring the impact of the lockdown on homes and families, police use cases of domestic violence.

“With domestic violence, we refer to incidents such as sexual assault, rape, pointing of firearm, murder, attempted murder, assault and assault GBH, kidnapping and in such instances, the victim and suspect usually have or had a relationship,” he said.

Compared to the same period last year with the lockdown, figures had decreased from 21 033 in 2019, to 6 651 cases of domestic violence during the lockdown, a 68.4% decrease.

“There is a possibility that there could be victims at home who have not or cannot report to the police for different reason. To assist in this regard so that victims do not feel vulnerable, neglected and unprotected, we urge victims to report to the police because police can really only come in after the crime has already taken place in the private space of homes,” said the Minister.

As the country prepares for the reopening of schools, the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government has assured parents and stakeholders that all necessary precautions will be taken to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

This follows an announcement by Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga on Tuesday that schools will reopen, starting with the return of the teachers on 25 May 2020 and the opening of schools on 1 June 2020 with Grade 7 and Grade 12 learners returning to the classroom.

The reopening of schools follows the National Coronavirus Command Council and Cabinet’s approval of the Basic Education Department’s plan to return to the classroom in a staggered approach.

In a statement issued following a Provincial Executive Council meeting held this week, the council welcomed the detailed plan for the reopening of the schools as presented by Education MEC Kwazi Mshengu.

The KwaZulu-Natal Executive Council invited all citizens and stakeholders to work together as the country prepares for the reopening of schools.

“The Provincial Executive Council understands the anxiety and concerns from some sections of society as we navigate these unchartered territories defined by COVID-19. The Executive Council also believes that the future of our country which is children and young people in general must not be allowed to be mortgaged by COVID-19 which at this stage appears to become a permanent feature of our lives.

“The Provincial Government assures all parents and stakeholders that all necessary precautions will be taken to prevent infections and that all non-pharmaceutical requirements for preventing the spread of the pandemic such as the cleaning and decontamination of schools, provision of PPE’s (Personal Protective Equipment) and that  measures for social distancing will be adhered to,” the Executive Council said.

Safety first

Speaking at the province’s weekly Coronavirus Command Council briefing on Thursday, Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi has also assured parents that the schools are safe to resume with teaching and learning.

Lesufi said that the province is prioritising safety first for all its learners and educators. He assured parents that if schools do not have the required PPEs, they will not open.

“Social distancing will be adhered to, each class will have four brigades’ recruitment youth to assist and ensure the social distancing. The brigades will also assist in our scholar transport,” Lesufi said.

Lesufi added that each school will be linked to a clinic and before the teachers start to teach their subjects, each teacher will spend the first five minutes to explain COVID-19 to learners, and why it is important to always wear their masks.

He said that the department is also in the process of recruiting an additional 50 substitute educators to stand in for teachers over 60 and those with comorbidities.

Due to lockdown and strict restrictions, the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) says it can only serve a minimum number of clients a day.

SASSA said social distance measures affect the minimum number of clients the agency can help on a daily basis.

The daily operation schedule

Monday and Tuesday: Applications for Old Age Grant only.

Wednesday and Thursday: Applications for Child Support Grant and Foster Care Grant only.

Friday: Overflow applications from Wednesday and Thursday and Disability or Care Dependency Grants are on an appointment basis where SASSA has received medicals prior to the lockdown.

SASSA card issuing, PIN resets and replacement of cards will be done at the South African Post Office (SAPO).

Older people and those living with disabilities

“Older persons and persons with disabilities social grant beneficiaries’ payment will be on 3 to 4 June 2020. Other social grants will be paid from 5 May 2020. Where either the 3rd or the 5th falls on a weekend or public holiday, the payment date moves forward to the next working day,” SASSA said in a statement.

SASSA has urged beneficiaries to use official SASSA communication platforms or visit local offices to get accurate information and clarity where there is a misunderstanding.

“This will protect them from many scams that are circulating on social media.”

Beneficiaries seeking more information should contact SASSA’s toll-free number on 0800 60 10 11 or 013 754 9428/54 from 8am to 4pm during the week, Monday to Friday.

President Cyril Ramaphosa will this morning hold a virtual engagement with stakeholders in the tourism sector who have sought an opportunity to engage the President on the impact of COVID-19 on the industry and plans to sustain the sector.

In mitigation of the impact of the pandemic on tourism, which is the largest source of employment in the country, the Department of Tourism has instituted a Tourism Relief Fund to assist small, micro and medium-sized enterprises affected by lockdown restrictions on the movement of people and the closure of the country’s borders.

The R200 million Tourism Relief Fund will be disbursed as a once-off R50 000 grant per entity to ensure that businesses survive as the country prepares to reopen more economic activity alongside the primary objective of saving lives in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Today’s meeting follows the President’s consultations in recent days with the National Economic Development and Labour Council, leaders of South Africa’s interfaith communities and leaders of political parties represented in Parliament.

“These consultations enable government to share its plans and outlook with stakeholders who are given the opportunity to table concerns and proposals that enable effective partnerships between government and the social partners in an effort to protect lives and livelihoods alike,” said the Presidency.

South Africa has recorded 30 new COVID-19 related deaths bringing the total number of deaths to 369 – this as the country’s cases rise to 19 137.

“We wish to express our condolences to the loved ones of the deceased and thank the health care workers who treated these patients,” said Health Minister, Dr Zwelini Mkhize.

To date 525 433 tests have been conducted with 18 572 tests done in the past 24 hours.

Western Cape remains the epicentre with 12 153 Coronavirus cases in the province. Gauteng has the second highest number of cases at 2 453 with the Eastern Cape third with 2 324.

As of Thursday, KwaZulu-Natal had 1 693, Free State 184, Limpopo 121, Mpumalanga 95, North West 77  and 37 in the Northern Cape.

Employment and Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi has assured Parliament that the department is conducting the requisite due diligence as it disburses COVID-19 TERS Benefits to avoid processing fraudulent claims.

The Minister made the assurance during a virtual Employment and Labour Portfolio Committee meeting on Wednesday.

Suspicious claims, said the Minister, are being subjected to forensic audits where foul play is suspected.

“With these huge payments, inevitably you will attract criminals and companies colluding with employees to try and fleece the coffers. We will be engaging the services of the auditor-general and auditing firms to ensure that we comb through all the payments,” the Minister said.

By Wednesday, the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF), an agency of the department, had paid over R14-billion to workers as a relief payment in the time of lockdown that has been necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping the country and the world.

UIF Commissioner Teboho Maruping, during the meeting, indicated there were employers who were suddenly claiming for more employees than those who are in the Fund’s systems. Previously, the fund would pay but raise debt against the companies to be paid with interests and penalties.

Maruping indicated that where companies were still on lockdown, the process of payment would be fast tracked in May as the Fund already had the details.

“Moreover, we are paying workers directly and we have increased our capacity to process the claims. We will easily check on those who have not returned to work enabling that simplicity of payments. We will also advise the companies that there is no need to apply again and that we will automatically pay. The system will be open for applications this coming Friday, 22 May 2020,” Maruping said.

With regard to the Compensation Fund (CF), Commissioner Vuyo Mafata said the CompEasy system was working smoothly and claims to the contrary were untrue. He was responding to a question from a Member of Parliament who had intimated that the system was in shambles.

Mafata indicated that the CF has migrated more than 80% of all valid invoices into the new system and where this has not happened, this was because there were still issues that needed to be resolved with the claims submitted.

“Since April we have paid more than R400-million in claims and continue to do so. The system is working. However, over and above that, we continue to engage medical advisors and many other stakeholders. We have received favourable uptake of the system which also allows the claimants a degree of freedom to do their own claims,” he said.

Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation Minister Lindiwe Sisulu has called upon every citizen to start saving water in earnest and use its availability as a weapon to fight COVID-19.

“The current water levels have the potential to sustain us until the next summer rains provided we use water wisely and sparingly,” Sisulu said.

She made the call as the country’s dam levels begin their downward spiral, as expected in winter.

The department called on South Africans to double their water saving efforts to sustain water supply and respond to the advent of COVID-19 during the imminently dry winter season.

The virus has so far infected 18 003 South Africans and claimed the lives of 339 others in its wake.

Government has called on all citizens to wash their hands regularly with water and soap to stem the tide of Coronavirus.

Amidst the outbreak of the pandemic, the department said water has played an important role in pushing back the frontiers of the rampant pestilence.

“Invariably, the call to wash hands frequently has placed an unprecedented strain on the availability of water throughout the country even as the Department of Water and Sanitation has embarked on a massive rollout to distribute jojo tanks among communities to enable them to have access to water,” the department said on Thursday.

The latest weekly report on dam levels by the department indicates the beginning of a drop in dams as the country enters its dry winter season.

“In the past two weeks dam levels have decreased marginally from 70.8 to 70.6%. The decrease is expected to be exacerbated by the absence of rainfall in the middle of winter while Western Cape dams are expected to be boosted by winter rains. Currently, dam levels in the province are at their lowest at 35.8%,” the department said.

Gauteng dam levels has dropped from 100.8% to 99.8%, followed by Northern Cape at 86.7% and North West at 70.6%. Free State, with the biggest dams in the country, remained unchanged at 83.8%.

Mpumalanga and Limpopo are fairly stable with their dams dropping fractionally to 75.4% and 68.2%, respectively. KwaZulu-Natal also maintained its stability at 62.9%.

The department said it is watching the water situation in Eastern Cape closely, as the province’s dam levels continued to drop to 56.3%.this week.

“This is amid fears that unless drastic measures are taken to address the situation the province may revert to the drought situation it experienced last year,” the department said.

Due to the current lockdown, citizens can expect a three-day blackout during the winter, a sizeable decrease from the envisaged 31 days of stage 1 load shedding.

“We don’t see any stage 2 or 3 during winter,” Eskom’s Generation Group Executive, Bheki Nxumalo, said on Thursday.

According to Eskom’s Chief Operating Officer Jan Oberholzer, while the power utility has recovered some partial losses and made improvements, the country is still not out of the woods yet.

“You can only get sustainability and reliability in these units when you have done proper reliability maintenance and that we haven’t done aggressively yet.

“Until the end of July next year, the risk of load shedding will remain because of the unreliability and unpredictability of the system,” he said.

He said this was due to the neglect of the system for the past decade.

Eskom’s executives were speaking at a virtual media briefing where the management outlined the details of the operational performance.

Eskom dealing with challenges

Eskom CEO André de Ruyter also warned that if Eskom does not get their act together, the power utility will continue to be on a  downward spiral and will halt operations.

He said the state-owned entity (SOE) still faces a significant number of challenges despite some wins.

“We have a debt of some R450 billion. We don’t have enough revenue to cover our debt service costs. We’ve had our challenges with the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) and this is part of our quest to find cost-effective tariffs that will enable us to be a sustainable and viable business,” De Ruyter added.

Eskom and NERSA have been in loggerheads over the tariff increases and De Ruyter said they are working on building the relationship with the regulator.

In addition, their operational expenditure has increased by 30% in the past five years, coal prices have augmented, while their procurement costs are higher than normal and load shedding is still not the thing of the past.

“Our business model is safe to say it’s outdated, the world of energy has changed around us, and we need to change along with it.”

However, De Ruyter said they have adopted the alternative of doing nothing and working around the clock to address the issues.

“If we don’t fix our operational stability, we will be on the red downward sloping curve which will result in poor governance as we’ve seen, poor staff morale, Eskom will be unable to operate, and we’ll require increased borrowings and support from the fiscus which we know it’s going to challenging particularly in a post-COVID-19 environment,” he said.

“And eventually, we’ll have severe restrictions and have curtailments imposed on us from the operational perspective which will translate into lower availability of electricity to the South African economy which of course is completely accepting.”

He said there are no additional bailouts they are expecting from the government except for the R56 billion.

De Ruyter said they are working around the clock to improve their income statement, balance sheet and continue to restructure Eskom while improving the culture of employees.

He said Eskom has managed to do short-term maintenance, they are repurposing old power stations and cutting day-to-day costs.

While the generation plant is still not reliable and predictable as they would like it to be, they are working on improving the current plant performance to reduce the risk of load shedding.

Other plans in the cards include expanding margin through efficiency return on assets, resolve NERSA tariff disputes, resolve municipal debt, coal cost renegotiations, fuel oil cost and consumption, and diesel consumption reduction.

Eskom’s COVID-19 response

De Ruyter said they have a comprehensive and focused effort in place to protect employees and contractors, in compliance with the government’s COVID-19 health and safety regulations.

“As of 7am, this morning, 21 Eskom employees and contractors have tested positive for COVID-19 and are receiving the best treatment available.”

He said the maintenance and construction projects were impacted by the lockdown.

The contractors are required to comply with COVID-19 health and safety regulations prior to working on-site, while operations at power stations and power networks have continued with minimal disruption.

The Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) has facilitated the repatriation by air of 5 239 South Africans stranded abroad.

According to DIRCO Minister Naledi Pandor, hundreds more have also returned through the country’s land borders.

As several countries went into lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19, an initial 3 637 requested repatriation.

But the repatriation of citizens has not been easy given the various restrictions implemented by countries across the world.

“The process involved a lot of negotiations with multiple stakeholders, which explains why we couldn’t repatriate some as speedily as we wished.

“We implemented this process to assist our nationals who were in distress – those stranded at airports, students who were asked to evacuate their places of residence as many countries were implementing lockdown, the elderly and those who needed medical attention,” said the Minister.

To properly coordinate the repatriation process, DIRCO established a 24-hour Command Centre, to help those who were unable to reach embassies.

Cost of repatriation

On the estimated cost of the repatriation of citizens, Pandor said while government had anticipated that repatriation would cost over R90 million the figure hovers far below R10 million.

She attributed the relatively low cost of the repatriation to the assistance of energy and chemical company – Sasol which donated jet fuel. Pandor also highlighted that many of the citizens were able to cover the cost of their return.

“Citizens being repatriated were in the main able to pay for themselves so we have not had to spend tremendous amounts of money. Many of the persons that sought repatriation sought it because flights were cancelled but they were holders of flight tickets,” said the Minister.

Peru repatriation underway

On the repatriation of South Africans in Lima, Peru, Pandor said there is a group of South Africans still stranded about nine hours away from the capital. The group cannot travel on the road because of the strict lockdown underway in Peru.

“We continue to appeal for their patience as we explore and negotiate ways of bringing them home. The government of Peru remains open to assisting us for their return,” said the Minister.

Repatriated South Africans seek to return to countries of residence

With some repatriated citizens seeking assistance to return to the countries they were repatriated from, DIRCO clarified that it cannot bear the cost of that repatriation.

“We also want to make it very clear that whilst our government is facilitating the return of our nationals, should they wish to return abroad after the lockdown is lifted we as government will not have the means to bear any cost of such return.

“We have made it clear to all those who sought help that we were helping those who are ordinarily resident in South Africa. We are not assisting you to come back for a short period and then paying for you to return from the country that you earnestly asked us to return you from,” said the Minister.

As government prepares for the ease of the lockdown to alert level 3, President Cyril Ramaphosa has consulted a broad range of faith leaders on government’s preparations for a differentiated approach to the reopening of the economy alongside the unrelenting effort to save lives.

The consultations between the President and interfaith leaders took place in a virtual meeting on Wednesday evening.

The President held discussions with the leadership of the South African Catholic Bishops Conference, the South African Council of Churches, the National Interfaith Council of South Africa, the Muslim Judicial Council, the Jewish Board of Deputies, the South African Hindu Maha Sabha, African Independent Churches, Charismatic/Pentecostal churches, African Traditional Faiths, the National Religious Leaders Council and the Southern African Interfaith Council.

“The meeting was held amid government’s planning, in partnership with civil society, for the progression of large parts of the country to alert Level 3 of the national lockdown that will enable further easing of economic activity and personal movement,” said the Presidency in a statement on Wednesday.

The meeting with interfaith leaders formed part of an intensive series of consultations undertaken by the President in recent days.

The consultations are an effort by government to take stakeholders into its confidence regarding progress and challenges in the management of the pandemic, and provides stakeholders with a platform for making proposals and articulating challenges identified in different communities or sectors.