Industry warns against December lockdown restrictions for South Africa
South Africa’s hospitality industry says the government needs to look at all the options it can before reintroducing damaging lockdown regulations.
Fedhasa, the national trade association for the hospitality industry, pointed to the government’s recent decision to extend the national state of disaster to 15 December 2021 as a point of concern ahead of the busy holiday period.
“As an industry, we are not insensitive to the fact that balancing lives and livelihoods is an impossible task and we understand that sacrifices have to be made. However, hotels and restaurants are not just a non-essential lifestyle activity which can be switched on and off to stem the spread of Covid,” said Rosemary Anderson, Fedhasa national chair.
Unlike many other sectors, the hospitality sector has largely borne the brunt of changing lockdown regulations, despite putting in place stringent health and hygiene protocols, she said.
“Thousands of livelihoods have already been lost and every day the operations of the hospitality sector and its extended supply chain are curtailed through regulations, more livelihoods hang in the balance,” said Anderson.
She said Fedhasa is calling on the government to make every effort to avoid imposing additional restrictions on the sector, particularly over the festive season break when many businesses will be trying to recover from the losses over the past 19 months.
“In addition to a public health campaign encouraging citizens to comply with non-pharmaceutical protocols, we would like to see a much faster rate of vaccination and a strengthened healthcare system as these really are the only way we can eliminate continuing surges, avoid Covid limiting operations and restore some semblance of normality in our lives.”
On Saturday (13 November), Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma extended South Africa’s national state of disaster by a further month.
The state of disaster is now set to expire on 15 December 2021. This would make it the 21st month under the state of disaster since it was declared at the end of March 2020, and the 18th extension of the regulations after their first end fate of June 2020.
In a government gazette published over the weekend, the minister said that the extension considers the need to augment the existing legislation and contingency arrangements undertaken by the organs of state to address the impact of the disaster.
While the national state of disaster was initially set to lapse on 15 June 2020, the act provides that it can be extended by the Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs minister by notice in the gazette for one month at a time before it lapses.
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