President Cyril Ramaphosa. File image.
THREE years ago, on March 27, 2020, South Africa entered what was supposed to have been a 21-day lockdown to stem the spread of the then unknown Covid-19 virus. The lockdown was part of a state of disaster that would endure for an unprecedented 750 days until it was finally lifted last April.
This week will be the third anniversary of the imposition of that first lockdown. The lockdown brought out the best in many South Africans and the worst in many of our leaders.
For all the petulance of some of our Cabinet ministers and the venality of others who saw in this crisis a godsend to loot, profiteer and behave in a way that suggested they were above the law when it came to their personal movement and association, it was also a time when President Cyril Ramaphosa actually appeared in control.
It was a time that South Africans felt that he had our best interests at heart, that he was at the forefront of leading this country’s co-ordinated response to the greatest global public health crisis in living memory. And yet, in retrospect, did he even do that? Not once did those “family meetings” ever entertain the kind of media scrutiny that a typical press conference would – for that was all they were.
Three years later, with ostensibly a far better mandate from his own party than then, Ramaphosa has proven to be an even greater disappointment than anyone could imagine. Crime levels are up, the economy is on life support and Eskom is a real state of disaster – and we don’t even get a “family meeting” to pretend that there is a plan to deal with any of it.
March 2020 was a watershed in our lives, but in retrospect it had very little to do with the virus at all.
The Saturday Star
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