Eastern Cape raising its game against Covid-19, claims premier

Premier Oscar Mabuyane said on Monday the Eastern Cape had ramped up its fight against Covid-19 to the point of having teams working 24 hours a day. But the DA says the provincial government has no co-ordinated plan to flatten the curve.

Mabuyane and his MECs painted a picture of a province hard at work when he updated the media on the work done to stop the spread of the virus.

But DA Eastern Cape leader Nqaba Bhanga and other party bosses, who also addressed the media, slammed Bhisho for what they said was poor and indecisive leadership in dealing with the pandemic.

The contrasting pictures come as the Eastern Cape's number of confirmed positive cases climbed to 774 by Monday afternoon, 42 more than Sunday's 732.

Mabuyane said 700,000 people had been screened, 17,000 tested and 379 have recovered. A total of 17 people have died as a result of the coronavirus in the province.

He said more than 15,000 had been arrested or charged for contravening the Disaster Management Act.

However, the DA said Mabuyane and health MEC Sindiswa Gomba have displayed poor leadership.

The DA added its voice to the "Gomba must go" calls, with Bhanga saying they would table a motion of no confidence in her in their bid to see the back of the embattled MEC.

Should MPLs vote according to party lines, the motion of no confidence will fail as the ANC has the majority with 44 MPLs to the DA's 10.

Even with the help of smaller opposition parties, the ANC would comfortably defeat the motion unless some vote with the opposition.

Mabuyane said they were committed to slowing down the spread of the virus.

“Our people are recovering and that is something that makes us feel better. Our healthcare systems are responding well.

“We are happy even in rural areas our people are recovering well, this is where people are easily recovering,” he said, praising medical workers for being in the frontline in the fight against the coronavirus.

The premier announced 24-hour testing and screening at all entry points to the province. Scores of people have entered the Eastern Cape from the Western Cape since lockdown began.

“We have a challenge of traffic from the Western Cape. We have been handling the issue of high volumes of corpses transported here weekend in and weekend out.

“The more the numbers grow in the Western Cape the more problems for us.”

The Western Cape was earlier accused of sabotaging the Eastern Cape’s Covid-19 efforts by allowing hundreds of people to travel to the Eastern Cape — an allegation vehemently dismissed by the Cape Town-based government.

Turning his attention to Gomba, Mabuyane described her as a leader who is “providing the necessary leadership where she is”.

“The competence of the MEC cannot be an emotional thing. We really want to appeal to people out there to support all of us. It is not just a health matter, it is a societal matter.

“We are reporting nationally every day and I have never received complaints from national that we are sluggish.

“I do not think it must be personalised — she is a leader in the sector and we need to have that confidence.

“She is not as bad as other people suggest. She is doing fine and able to meet targets,” he said.

Calls for Gomba to be recalled have mounted, especially after she said “andidikwe” [I am fed-up] during a virtual press briefing with health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize and other health MECs last week.

Bhanga painted a different picture to Mabuyane.

“We have seen poor co-ordination of activities and planning. There has not been a clear process management of systems, starting from the level of political leadership and administrative level of leadership.

“For that reason we might have seen that two specialists in health [former health MEC Dr Bevan Goqwana and ex-superintendent-general Dr Siva Pillay] have been brought on board because the systems are not working. This results in reactive action from government.”

Bhanga said the province should model its response on that of the Western Cape — by actively “going out to look for Covid-19 cases” and by establishing a website that releases the number of cases in real time.

Mabuyane told MPLs last week during a virtual sitting that the province was committed to testing as many people as possible, even saying failure to do that would be tantamount to premeditated murder.

Bhanga recommended:

• Daily Covid-19 statistics should be broken down into regions and subregions so that residents would know where the infections were;
• Allow not more than 10 family members to attend funerals;
• Have an updated daily real-time dashboard; and
• Fill critical health vacancies.

Mabuyane said they would launch a R100m 4,000-bed field hospital donated by Volkswagen SA in Nelson Mandela Bay on Tuesday.

The NMB and BCM stadiums would be used as quarantine sites while more wards were being constructed in some hospitals.

Transport MEC Weziwe Tikana-Gxothiwe said soldiers would be deployed in “problematic areas” including Aberdeen and Tsitsikamma.

DA MPL Jane Cowley said the Eastern Cape government had ignored recommendations of its own epidemiologist, Thomas Dlamini — tabled before the legislature in March — on how to tackle the coronavirus.

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