The Zimbabwe Daily – Staff Reporter
Pretoria, South Africa – Some parts of South Africa could soon find themselves going back to higher lockdown alert levels due to a spike in the number of COVID-19 cases.
To date, South Africa has more than 150 000 COVID-19 cases with 2 657 having succumbed to the virus.
Many of the country’s top hospitals are running out of space and facilities to accommodate COVID-19 patients.
“Due to the increased number of COVID-19 cases, some parts of the country might have to have stricter lockdown regulations, provinces like the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and Gauteng are now the epicenters of the virus, the National Command Council hasn’t yet commented on that but I think this is something we have to bear in mind to avoid burdening our health care system as well as curbing the spread of the virus,” said Dr. Zweli Mkhize, the country’s Minister of Health.
Already the country is going through a huge financial stress, which has seen the southern African country’s GDP shrinking by two percent in the first quarter of the year, according to StatsSA.
18 million South Africans are already relying on the government for financial aid and their wellbeing, with an additional two million expected to join in due to retrenchments and closure of companies as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Today, the country’s Auditor General, Kimi Makwetu announced the 2018/19 national municipal audit results which saw only 20 municipalities having clean audits out of 278 which are being burdened by corruption, maladministration and arrears.
“Some of the municipalities tend to divert their current budget allowances to other things which wouldn’t have been planned for, that’s why they have arrears as they will be waiting to use their budgetary allowance for that current year to cover the previous year’s arrears,” said Parks Tau, deputy Minister for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs.
President Cyril Ramaphosa will tonight host a virtual public symposium which will see members of the public engaging with the President on anything that is related to COVID-19.
