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President Cyril Ramaphosa says he will address the nation next week on a variety of topics.
This as Ramaphosa expresses great concern for the country’s economy hit by the pandemic and preventing a “second wave” of Covid-19 cases and corruption.
The president was answering questions in a virtual conference with the South African National Publishers Forum (Sanef).
In opening remarks, Ramaphosa confirmed that the government was stepping up its response to Covid-19, including strengthening contact tracing. He said the country could see “sudden surges” and the government was working to prevent a second wave of infections.
The second issue is economic recovery. Ramaphosa said the pandemic has had a “devastating” effect on the economy and cited the news Tuesday of the 51% reduction in the economy.
He said the government was working with stakeholders to see how to develop a recovery strategy. He also said that there will be a strategy to increase new jobs.
The third area of attention is the issue of corruption. He said the “silver lining” that emerged from the Covid-19 PPE corruption was that there will be transparency when it comes to contracts. The government will put measures in place to make this happen.
He said the government is looking to strengthen anti-corruption measures in general.
The president also spoke about gender violence and said that the government is looking for the best way to combat it. He also said that racism still “rears its ugly head.”
Ramaphosa said he will make media questions and answers available to ministers, especially as the economy has been in bad shape lately.
The president, for his part, said that there are “measures we must take” to promote the rights of journalists, especially with regard to harassment against journalists.
Sanef said it has raised more than R3 million after the bloodbath of jobs in the media sector, and the forum has paid R5,000 to more than 200 recipients.
Its president, Sbu Ngalwa, told Ramaphosa that journalists continued to be victims of harassment while carrying out their work, seen recently during protests in the Clicks media by members of the EFF.
Ngalwa said the forum is working on a memorandum that will instruct the police on how to deal with journalists on the front lines.
He expressed his condolences to members of the media who died from Covid-19.
– Kerushun Pillay
