may drop to Level 3 of the national lockdown at the end of May. In a statement shortly after the address, Steenhuisen said Ramaphosa was attempting to defend the indefensible.
He called for an end to the lockdown, citing that it had cost more lives than it had saved.
Irrational decisions
Steenhuisen called out the National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC) for what he deemed irrational decisions and for acting without any checks and balances.
He said the State of Disaster that South Africa was currently under, governed by the Disaster Management Act, had zero provision for parliamentary oversight.
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“Which means this secretive National Command Council answers to no one. Now, consider that not even a State of Emergency, which is a further step up from a State of Disaster, has such sweeping powers with no parliamentary oversight. There is no logical reason for this, and it surely could not have been the intention of the authors of the Disaster Management Act.”
The DA had earlier written to National Assembly Speaker Thandi Modise, calling for an oversight committee to be established over the executive in charge of the Covid-19 response, but she declined.
“But, right now, because of this lack of oversight, the Executive is effectively doing the job of writing our laws and regulations as they please, bypassing all the debate and possible opposition that would’ve happened in Parliament. We have to fight this, because from here our democracy finds itself on a very slippery slope.
“The DA will be asking the courts to apply the same oversight provisions to the State of Disaster as to the State of Emergency,” he told journalists.
