TOBY SHAPSHAK: The wrong end of the stick

As middle-class SA emerges from self-isolation, blinking in the sunlight and the harsh reality of this new normal, there seemed a palpable lift in the country’s spirits this week. Perhaps I am projecting because I have been able to go for an early morning walk with my wife and son for the past few days. The sense of camaraderie is so 1994, but with face masks.

So, this is what level 4 looks like. Restricted exercise, mandatory face masks and takeaways. The early signs of a restarting economy. In the suburbs that is. In the townships, life is unchanged, except that people are now hungrier. And instead of tsotsis, it’s the police doing the beatings.

Nobody can deny the sudden joy of takeaways, but it is the most visible form of the return to work after five weeks of lockdown. If you’re struggling to work out what is different between level 5 and level 4, don’t panic. Nobody does, not even the cabinet. A relieved and wheezing nation, with no fingernails left, clearly heard President Cyril Ramaphosa say smoking would be allowed from May 1. The contradiction later by his beaten opponent for the presidency of the ANC, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, stings. The co-operative governance minister is the latest of a bumbling pack of tone-deaf, out-of-touch ministers to fiddle with the lockdown regulations — always, it seems, with no understanding of logic or common sense.

Not since the 1920s has a prohibition caused such upset and debate. Why did NDZ do it? To humiliate Ramaphosa? To finally succeed in her 20-year plan, as a former health minister, to get people to stop smoking?

The sense of camaraderie on the streets in the morning is so 1994, but with face masks

I’m not a smoker, but I do understand that the SA Revenue Service is losing out on R1.5bn a month on taxes from alcohol and cigarettes. Conversely, I can see the merit in banning alcohol sales. SA has negative crime during the Covid-19 lockdown due in no small part to the booze blockade and criminals not being able to roam freely. As the arguments rage over which sectors should be allowed to start operating, doesn’t it make sense to let any business that can trade, do so?

But not to the cabinet. The sanction against e-commerce is beyond comprehension, a special achievement from holders of the highest office who have seemed unable to agree on the basics from the beginning.

A strangely socialist streak runs through the logic that if everyone can’t operate as normal, then nobody can. Why can’t Takealot.com deliver everything it already has in its warehouses? Why can’t Pick n Pay sell everything in the store, if people need it?

The prevailing argument from the government is that nobody should get any special advantage. As usual, the government has got it all backwards. Instead of crippling everybody, allow whatever companies that can operate to do that. Fire up whatever engine we can. As usual, the government has the wrong end of the stick. How do we get it to listen to logic?