W A Richter, Somerset West
Near the end of July 2020 I had to take a worker of mine to Lwandle on a Saturday morning.
There were many people in the streets, mostly young people, just milling around.
I was horrified to see that virtually no one wore a mask, and practising social distancing.
It was already a criminal offence not to wear a mask, but there was no sign of Bheki Cele‘s brave troops who had assaulted the same worker in April with a sjambok for no reason, while he was merely walking home after having purchased some simple groceries.
I checked with this worker periodically and he reported that nothing had changed. So how could anybody expect that these areas would not be hotspots for the transmission of Covid-19?
The situation we have now can largely be laid squarely at the door of big-mouth Cele’s incompetent policing of township areas where people ignored the basic precautions against the spreading of the virus.
When beaches became prohibited areas, Cele’s troops descended upon them in macho style in numbers blowing their sirens at the slightest suggestion of an infringement. If it wasn’t so sick it might even be hilarious.