Mayor Plato welcomes lockdown Alert Level 2 announcement

16 August 2020

The announcement made by President Ramaphosa last night that South Africa will be moving to Alert Level 2 of the national lockdown is a welcome step in the right direction. Alert Level 2 marks the start of the serious challenge we now face to get our economy going full-steam again.

For months our residents have played their part, and done what they can to limit the spread of the coronavirus while government put measures in place to ensure there was adequate resources to address the global pandemic. Now that we are seeing a continued drop in infections we must not become complacent, and we should all continue to practice the safety measures that we have all become accustomed to over recent months.

Having limited the spread, it is time for businesses to re-open and I am sure there are hundreds of thousands of residents who are eager to get back to work in the tourism and hospitality industry. The opening of provincial borders to allow inter-province travel will hopefully see local tourism find innovative ways to attract South Africans to come and spend time in our beautiful city with its long sandy beaches, easily accessible hiking trails, welcoming wine lands and world-class shopping experiences.

As the City of Cape Town, we have done whatever we can to support small businesses and the informal trading sector to trade safely during the previous stages of the lockdown. One example is that the City approved more than 4 500 building plans with a total value of R5,2 billion during the lockdown. These approvals have resulted in construction work that creates thousands of jobs and stimulates our economy, which is much need during these challenging times.

Business support packs were handed out to thousands of businesses and informal traders, which contained hand sanitiser, cloth face masks, and important safety information. We distributed hundreds of thousands of washable cloth face masks to residents across the metro and we continued to engage with the business sector to find out how best we could support them during these challenging times. We called on the national government to hear the concerns of the business sector and to allow as many as possible who could trade safely to do so.

The sale of tobacco and alcohol will again be permitted, and I want to encourage residents to please drink responsibly. Alcohol-related harms will only damage our efforts to limit the spread of the coronavirus and get our economy on its feet again, so please choose to be part of the solution and not the problem.

I encourage all residents to read the latest set of regulations and familiarise themselves with the contents as the President indicated that a curfew of 22:00 to 04:00 still applies.

Issued by Greg Wagner, Spokesperson to the Executive Mayor, 16 August 2020