South Africa Ups Security Measures To Ensure Adherence To Lockdown

Truth be told, not a lot is right in South Africa at the moment. That goes without saying that the economy has its own share of problems, with declining growth rate, depleting GDP coupled with a lack of employment opportunities already posing a murky picture for one of the widely loved and most admired countries in the world, not just in all of Africa.

And now, it appears that the country has sort of loosened its defence spending pockets in order to address that very concern that has engulfed much of the world toward a spot of bother.

Well, that’s the coronavirus lockdown- what else?

So just a few hours back, South Africa did take what can only be called a rather drastic step toward ensuring that one is adhering to the sense of lockdown having been imposed in the region.

And you might even be surprised to know the extent to which South Africa has gone in order to ensure just that.

A few hours back on April 22, 2020, it became clear upon the President’s declaration that as many as 73,180 members of the country’s elite South African National Defence Force were deployed in different regions of the country to look after the monitoring of the condition of the current (situation of) lockdown.

And this was a rather steep step taken toward ensuring that no one, absolutely no one is found guilty of having flouted the norms and rules of the current civilian situation that is actually meant to bring about a greater good.

Much of the news platforms from Africa are actually focusing on this piece of news, wherein www.moneycontrol.com had to share the following, in its reportage of the story:

The President said in his letter that he had decided to employ the additional members of the SANDF, consisting of the Regular Force, Reserve Force and Auxiliary Force, because the outbreak of COVID-19 continues to increase with reported cases across the Republic of South Africa.

Ramaphosa has authorised the employment of the additional members of the SANDF for the period April 2 to June 26 at a cost expected to total over 4.5 billion rand.

That being said, a statement was issued for the general awareness and notice of the larger public. The said was done by a gentleman known as Cyril Xaba, a member of the joint standing committee on defence in South Africa where the following message was transmitted in the public domain:

“The joint Standing Committee on Defence will tomorrow (Wednesday) hold a virtual meeting to consider the letter from the President on the Employment of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) in terms Section 201 (4) of the Constitution regarding the reasons, place, number of soldiers as well as the period of employment in the fight against the spread of the Covid-19 virus.”