SA president Cyril Ramaphosa makes firm decisions on Covid-19

South Africa’s credit rating has been downgraded by a number of international credit rating agencies, with the last being Moody’s which finally put us to junk status threatening our ability to lend for debt relief from international funding institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

This latest investment grade rating will also see the country being excluded from the FTSE World Government Bond Index (WGBI). The downgrade couldn’t have come at a worse time for South Africa as it began a three-week nationwide lockdown to try halt the rapid spread of the novel corona virus which has infected 2,415 people up to date in the country.

This didn’t exclude the government’s own capacity and frustration to limit the economic deterioration, in the current shock and more durably is constrained,” slamming the unreliable electricity supply, persistent weak business confidence and investment as well as long-standing structural labour market rigidities that exist.

Amidst these realities in the economic landscape, Ramaphosa’s stand on choosing the lives of people first wasn’t deterred as he announced the extension of the national lockdown adding a two more week period to the existing 21 days which has changed the expected end date to month end April, 2020.

A great deal of criticism has fallen on Ramaphosa and his cabinet on the decision to extend the lockdown in a response to flattening the curve and stopping the spread of Covid-19.

South Africa’s radical response to Covid-19 that includes the suspension of all flights both domestic and international and any form of traveling between provinces has received a lot of applause from the international community though it projected that it will still be a rough period for the country during the outbreak of this pandemic.

Economists and experts already suggested possible methods in how South Africa can attempt to resuscitate its economy, including the development of stimulus packages, however the concerns of the country’s Fiscal capacity to stomach the lockdown still persist and the realities after the pandemic has been managed or what we term the Covid-19 Aftermath.

For the moment the country is testing and implementing innovations that can respond better to the pandemic. In an interview with the SABC, Wits University Economist, Dr. Peter Karungu mentioned how the continent can utilize its digital skills set to develop innovative ways of curbing the spread of Covid-19 on the continent.

“If you look at the innovation the country has, the collaborations between the research centers and their ingenuity is amazing and for the first time South Africa will release it’s own ventilators and some regions in Kenya have developed machines that can perform up to 30 000 tests in day “, said Karungu.

“If the investors could see South African students being able to come up with their own prototype of masks and this will get Africa somewhere very quickly. Africa has to start to be more self reliant and self innovative so we don’t have depend on the rest of the world for our solutions”, he added.

The current innovations which are being tested at many research institutions in the country and the continent are part of ongoing research in attempt to find cure while trying to curb the spread of the virus.

One of South Africa’s opposition party, democratic alliance (DA) has recently submitted a #Smart Lockdown working paper, a document tabling the possible solutions for the government to consider in trying to save the country’s crippling economy.