READER LETTER | Lockdown feels like we are back in apartheid days

The lockdown is providing a climate for the government to abuse its power. The regulations provided by co-operative governance and traditional affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma allowed for the purchase of basic goods and services during the period of lockdown.

For smokers these basic goods include cigarettes. This is a perfectly reasonable interpretation of the regulations but she unilaterally banned the sale of cigarettes. Police minister Bheki Cele interpreted this regulation to forbid dog walking, jogging and the sale of cigarettes and alcohol. Transport minister Fikile Mbalula arbitrarily decided that only 70% of a taxi may be filled with passengers.

We see hundreds of people standing together at paypoints for social grants without any policing yet police arrest a man for taking a walk on his own in a deserted place. It doesn’t make sense.

It feels like we are back in the days of apartheid where the government used a state of emergency to add whatever spin they needed to impose whatever rules they wanted.

The executive must be brought to account by the courts for any abuses of power, or we become a banana republic.

— Piers Steenekamp, via e-mail