FAWU QUESTIONS SAFETY MEASURES AT BORDERS , PORTS OF ENTRY

MEDIA STATEMENT: 6 March 2020

FAWU QUESTIONS SA SAFETY MEASURES AT BORDERS & PORTS OF ENTRY

The Food & Allied Workers Union (FAWU) notes with extreme concern the developments as announcement by Minister of Health, Dr Zweli Mkhize, that South Africa's first Corona virus case has been confirmed in Kwa-Zulu Natal.

We have also taken note of the minister’s assurances publicly that the government is managing the process and handling the matter accordingly with measures in place to deal with and outbreak within the country's borders.

This has led us to have more questions than answers at this moment. The minister took the country into confidence and said the department was adequately prepared, and that measures were in place to test and detect the symptoms at the port of entries. If that is in fact the case, how did a person who returned from Italy manage to pass undetected? The minister confirmed that the affected individual passed undetected on arrival at the airport and we are left to wonder how many other affected persons have passed through our ports undetected as we speak.

This effectively means that our measures are inadequate and ineffective. This means our country is in more danger than the Minister and the department wants us to believe and is prepared to divulge. If a person could enter the country through the airport where there are stringent protocols and screenings in place and still manage to pass undetected, what about our borders, where undocumented farmworkers in the area of Limpopo and Mpumalanga still frequently go in and out the country unchecked?

In South Africa, people still enter illegally and without detection at our various border posts so how can we be confident that our controls are adequate as alluded to by the Minister and that  no one who has the virus has entered the country through there. We have to ask ourselves how many other such cases could exist in the country that we are unaware of.

Government and the minister have to come clean to the public and admit that we, as a country, are not adequately prepared for this epidemic that has potential to bring our country to its knees. 

The disease is real and the country's approach towards this disease leaves most citizens sceptical, particularly in terms of the efficacy of safety measures at SA borders and other ports of entries. These developments causes citizens to panic and righteously so.

FAWU calls upon the government, in particular the Minister, to stop being rhetorical and embark on educating its health professionals and the nation on what to do to keep safe. We should give people all the necessary information and preventative measures to adequately prepare and keep safe. Nurses and all health staff should be trained adequately to confront this disaster. The borders of SA demand urgent attention and speed in terms of scanning every person in and out the country. If not, this Corona Virus will damage our already frail economy and become another HIV pandemic saga in SA.

For more information, please call FAWU Deputy General Secretary, Mngomezulu Mayoyo on 082 440 4039. Released by FAWU media liaison officer, Dominique Martin 082 498 5631