When President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the country last week during one of his “family meetings”, he confirmed that public comment would be gathered regarding the national state of disaster and the potential shift to a different system to be implemented for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

At the time, the deadline was said to be 16th April, allowing plenty of time for citizens to provide comment.

According to newly gazetted disaster management regulations in accordance with the in terms of 27(2) of the Disaster Management Act, 2022 (Act No. 57 of 2002), this deadline has changed drastically to 1st April 2022, leaving only 48 hours for public comment, depending on when you read this.

As such, there is now far less time for the public to make their thoughts known on the national state of disaster.

Explaining why the date has changed by more than two weeks, a tweet shared by the GCIS Media Liason account (featured below), notes that “the limited comment period is to ensure that government can end the state of disaster as soon as possible, while responsibly putting in place regulations relating to post-disaster recovery and rehabilitation.”

@GovernmentZA has gazetted, for public comment, the draft post national state of disaster regulations pertaining to the management of #COVID19 in terms of 27(2) of the Disaster Management Act, 2022 (Act No. 57 of 2002). pic.twitter.com/tmPD91fUvh

— GCIS Media Liaison (@GCISMedia) March 30, 2022

While we can understand the need to expedite the process, given that the national state of disaster has been in effect locally for more than two years now, this short window for public comment seems nigh untenable for many South Africans.

As such, it looks like government is trying to remove the state of disaster and switch to its new system before the Easter weekend arrives, which is also predicted to be a trigger for a fifth wave of infections next month.

Those wanting to make comment online, can do so via this form.

[Image – Photo by Kyrie kim on Unsplash]