Johannesburg - As the ANC resolved to postpone all its planned events and conferences in the coming months amid the spiralling coronavirus pandemic, the party has announced an outreach campaign which will see its members teach ordinary citizens about the dangers posed by the deadly virus.
On Monday, the ANC held its extended national working committee (NWC) meeting in Centurion, where the top brass discussed the party’s own response to the spread of the virus, which has infected more than 60 South Africans so far.
President Cyril Ramaphosa said the governing party’s local leaders had been instructed to embark on door-to-door community visits to educate people about the best ways in which they could insulate themselves from being infected by the virus.
“This is going to be necessary as this virus continues to be present, and we are hoping obviously that we will be able to contain it, but it may happen that it begins to spread, and when it does, that is when the leadership of our communities, particularly in the form of ANC branch leadership, will need to be among our people,” he said.
Ramaphosa has, however, warned against the politicisation of the virus, adding that the ANC would have to try to work together with other political parties at local level in the fight against its spread.
“We must work with all other formations in society.
“Political parties, religious organisations, sporting organisations, stokvels, youth organisations and women’s organisations, we must work with them to make sure that we contain the virus. We will be issuing pamphlets to make sure that the educational part of the work that we want to spread among our people is properly enforced,” he said.
He said he was also planning to meet all political parties in Cape Town to discuss how the spread of the pandemic should be approached without political posturing. “I will be looking to gain from their wisdom and their insight on how best we should proceed in making sure that we contain this virus,” he said.
The EFF has already generated controversy after it called for those affected by the virus to be quarantined by the State on Robben Island.
With the Easter weekend approaching, where religious formations were set to hold their annual congregations, Limpopo Premier Stanley Mathabatha announced that the Zion Christian Church would go ahead with its pilgrimage - with 3 million people expected to attend.
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