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By IOL Reporter 
3h ago
Durban – The district attorney has urged Finance Minister Tito Mboweni to remove a R10 billion bailout for SAA Airways and implored him to use the funds to budget for the country’s vaccination program.
DA spokesman Ashor Sarupen said the party had written to Parliament’s appropriations committee on Tuesday, imploring it to divert funds to purchase Covid vaccines rather than bailing out the struggling national airline.
As of Monday night, there are 1,011,871 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the country, as well as 27,071 deaths. There are also just under 850,000 recoveries since March.
Meanwhile, on Monday night, President Cyril Ramaphosa imposed a level 3 lockdown on the country and instituted a 9:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. curfew after rising infections caused hospitals to start. to suffer tensions as the new variant of Covid spreads rapidly across the country.
The new restrictions will also ban sales of alcoholic beverages, parks and beaches until mid-January.
DA leader John Steenhuisen said the government needed to implement a vaccination program as the closures were a short-term gain that hurt industries.
“There is a crucial and fundamental point that Ramaphosa has still forgotten to speak clearly and with certainty: the acquisition and provision of the readily available coronavirus vaccine.
“We understand that the resurgence of Covid-19 cases is terrible for our country, but we knew at the beginning of this crisis that we would be dealing with the virus for 18 to 24 months. Now we need to stock our arsenal with a finite solution to tackle this pandemic decisively and sustainably.
“Ramaphosa initially said that we would receive the coronavirus vaccine in the first quarter of 2021. This goal has now been moved to the second quarter. This indecision and hesitation only shows that the government has dropped the ball entirely on a vaccine that should have been implemented. weeks ago.
“Blockades and bans are not a sustainable solution. They can be very effective in the very short term, but they cause very deep and lasting damage to the economy and the livelihoods of our citizens.
“Poverty is the leading cause of death in our country and the government must have more in its arsenal than just closures and bans. There needs to be a simultaneous plan to vastly improve public health care and gain urgent access to a vaccine to begin a comprehensive deployment, ”Steenhuisen said.
Sarupen said they had urgently written to the chairman of the appropriations committee in Parliament, asking for an urgent virtual public hearing on the ransom money.
“This matter becomes particularly urgent as Health Minister Zweli Mkhize took to Twitter to complain about financial constraints hampering the country’s access to the vaccine.
“The DA estimates that R10 billion could buy up to 23 million vaccines, based on the current market and exchange rates, which would cover almost 40% of South Africa’s 58 million population.
“Middle-income countries (of which South Africa is considered one) such as Mexico and Costa Rica, among many others, have begun to purchase and deploy the vaccine, protecting their health workers and citizens at risk, despite the fact that These countries have socioeconomic conditions similar to ours.
“By all available reports, just over R220m has been spent on procuring a COVID-19 vaccine for South Africa, with the first vaccines only expected to take place in early to mid-2021.
“It is also understood that this funding for vaccines comes from the Solidarity Fund and not from the state itself, which shows how skewed the ANC’s fiscal priorities are,” Sarupen said.
MESS
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