Our little information about intelligence community especially foreign counter intelligence is to alert the country about any possible dangers that can harm the country at large. We always thought we are safe given the structure of National Intelligence Agency (NIA) predecessor State Security Agency (SSA) which consist of domestic and foreign unit whose main roles are to ensure that at whatever cost, the country is a safe place.

HOW RAMAPHOSA ADMINISTRATION IGNORE EARLY WARNINGS

It was late January when Chinese president Xi Jinping announce a construction of Wuhan hospital in efforts to curb a virus that was destroying people in the state of Wuhan. The Hospital took two to three weeks to be completed and is now fully functional. According to available sources, it is estimated that about 300 South Africans are staying in Wuhan alone. Two weeks after the breakout, South Africans in that country started panicking and left the country without any test of the virus. When these South Africans based in China arrived in our country, they were not subjected to testing in order to ensure that they were not affecting innocent South Africa who have no travel experience. Ramaphosa’s administration and its intelligence community failed dismally to take necessary measures to protect South African.

BREAKOUT IN SOUTH AFRICA

Obvious the first Italian based South African traveler was first detected with coronavirus in Durban in late February was not the first person.  As from mid February, people were travelling free between different countries which put them at risk of contacting this pandemic. Our government through independent media made us believe that we were still safe even though our borders were still open to internationals. They continue to blind us by telling us the person with Coronavirus were quarantined and were having no contact with the nation. It did not take ten days after that the numbers climb in a lightning speed to 13 in a space of 15 days. It was then that the government started addressing the nation about possible measures they were going to be take to prevent the pandemic.

IT WAS TOO LATE

South Africa is one of the biggest countries that trade with China, which put them at a high risk of being the first countries to contact the virus through trade. A number of South African students are studying in different parts of China. Government failed to close the border between South African and China and follow up by closing all international flights. Even though this was not going to stop the  coronavirus from spreading, but it was going to slow it by a rate of 50% than it is today. Secondly Ramaphosa administration failed to quickly stop gathering of people as well as close schools early, prohibit any firms that were operating while orders were imposed.

SOLUTION ON CURRENT STATE.

South Africa has been thrown into junk status by Moody’s which is not a problem and does not make any sense. There following are my suggested solutions that can help during this lockdown.

• Close provincial borders – This is not a holiday, people must stay indoors and stop travelling from provinces to provinces. By travelling to other provinces, they are taking this virus to innocent people in rural areas who were not exposed to the virus.
• Spirit manufactures must help chemicals –  South Africa is home to one of the world largest spirit manufacturers like KWV and Le Roux. It was only last week that sanitizer producers stated that they were running out ethanol and alcohol. These spirit manufacturers must join hands and help.
• Rich must show up at poor– Twenty one days with no work no salary is like a 3 months to other South Africans. There are people whom before they eat they need to go and hustle food each and every day. Rich people must make sure that they deliver foods at depots especially in townships and rural areas in order for them to get something to eat.
• Mass testing of South African free of charge – In order to fight this pandemic successfully, it will be wise to know the correct number of infected. In that way government will be able to isolate and cure those people separately.
• Private hospitals must not be private this time – This is a right time that companies must work together to solve this problem. Private hospitals must open hands and join forces with DoH and assisting the hospitals in trying to accommodate the increasing number of patience.
• Hotels must join forces and open spaces. – Tsogo Sun led by example closing 36 hotels due to lack of tourism at this time. They open these hotels to people suffering from pandemic and who are on isolation. We urge other to follow the example and assist.

Fighting this coronavirus will not only take government but every stakeholder in South Africa. By the way government is everyone who is paying tax in country. In my understand, even the unemployed are paying the tax, when they are buying food at shop. If government announce a nationwide lockdown, let us all as South African adhere to that and stay indoors in order to avoid to contact the coronavirus. It will be so sad when we fill hospitals dying from something that we were having options to prevent from spreading. Together, we can.

Sinakokonke