The EFF has condemned requests by the Gauteng Liquor Forum
for Covid-19 lockdown regulations to be relaxed and for government to allow the
sale of alcohol.
“This call is tantamount to conspiring for the mass murder of
the poor, in particular black people. Selling alcohol during a war against
Covid-19 to communities with historic existing problems of access to health
care. malnutrition and general hunger only serves one purpose: to finish our
people,” the EFF said.
This comes after President Cyril Ramaphosa extended the
21-day lockdown by a further two weeks.
The liquor forum wrote to Ramaphosa arguing that it was
their constitutional mandate to continue trading alcohol and threatening to
approach the Constitutional Court for legal recourse.
The red berets have in turn said that if the forum takes
the government to court, the party “will without hesitation gather a powerful
legal team to oppose any court action by any liquor forum anywhere in the
country to lift the ban on the sale of alcohol”.
“More importantly the lockdown regulations restrict the
movements of persons and goods. In particular, regulation 11B(1)(b) provides
that all businesses and other entities shall cease operations during lockdown,
save for essential services and goods,” the letter reads.
The forum is claiming that since government moved to
declare a state of emergency in the country it has lost a considerable amount
of money.
“The extension of the lockdown period to April 30 2020 will
most likely ruin their businesses. They do not have access to other means of
surviving, while the lockdown continues,” the forum said. Soweatn
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