I welcome President Ramaphosa’s phased approach to get back to business

24 April 2020

Following several weeks of a hard lockdown to try and prevent the spread of the coronavirus, I fully support President Cyril Ramaphosa’s intention to lift the hard lockdown from 1 May 2020 and allow for a phased approach to get us all back to work.

The coronavirus is not going away anytime soon and while the hard lockdown will be lifted next week, we need to be mindful that we will not immediately get to return to our way of life before the lockdown. We will need to continue taking the necessary precautions – washing our hands regularly, using hand sanitiser, wearing a facemask, and practising social distancing.

Our work environments will be very different with many more of us working from home, while those who work in factories and need to go to the office, will have to introduce new approaches to hygiene, health and safety.

While stopping the spread of the virus remains our top priority, I believe getting our economy going again is an equally important priority, and I am sure the National Government is doing whatever they can to get as many sectors back to work as possible.

I have asked the City of Cape Town’s Mayoral Committee Member for Economic Development, Ald James Vos, to engage with National Government about which sectors can return to work, noting that each local economy in the country has different priority sectors as each province produces different types of goods.

It is important that this information is shared as soon as possible as we need to keep as many people employed as possible and any unnecessary delays in getting people back to work could result in unavoidable unemployment.

We acknowledge that the large metros in South Africa are the most at risk when it comes to the spread of the coronavirus, but these large metros are also the engine rooms that keep the South African economy going and we cannot afford to keep people at home that can safely go back to work and play a vital role in keeping our economy going.

South Africans are a resilient people and I know that we will do whatever we need in order to protect ourselves, and work with government to find a way to get back to work that is safe and responsible.

Issued by Greg Wagner, Spokesperson to the Executive Mayor, 24 April 2020