South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday informed Parliament about his decision to extend the deployment of 20,000 soldiers, a significant drop from 76,000, until September 30 to help enforce COVID-19 restrictions, reported Reuters. The announcement comes as the country reported its biggest single-day jump in coronavirus cases.
Ramaphosa had previously deployed 2,820 members of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) just a couple of days before imposing a nationwide lockdown in the country in late March. At the time, the expected cost of the army deployment expenditure was set at R641,200,290. The number was increased to 76,000 in April as the health situation worsened.
The South African president said he expects that the cost of this extended redeployment to be around R1.5 billion.
The redeployment of the SANDF comes as parts of the country face the possibility of reentering a stricter lockdown.
On Thursday, Gauteng premier David Makhura warned about the surge in coronavirus cases in the province and reiterated the need for reintroduction of stricter lockdown rules.
The Gauteng province is currently reporting over 3,000 new cases daily. If the numbers continue to increase at the same rate, it will triple the province’s number of infections by July end, with some projecting that it will hit 300,000 by the end of August. On Thursday, 3 993 new cases were reported in the province.
Makhura said that his provincial government will continue to push for behavioural change at a ward-level. He noted that this will likely not be enough.
“We are also making presentations to the National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC) at reinstating some of the harsher and more stringent (lockdown) measures,” Makhura said.
He said a harder localized lockdown might be imposed in areas where the infection rate is getting out of hand and the South African people are not observing the measure being put in place.
In related news, the South African Department of Basic Education has decided to delay many grades from returning to school next week, with only grades R, 6, and 11 set to return on 6 July.
