Cape Town - The DA has petitioned Cooperative Governance Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma to allow hair salons to reopen, and said it was preparing to go to court on the matter.
"The continued criminalisation of the personal care services industry under level 3 is irrational, arbitrary and unlawful, and should the minister not answer the letter from our lawyers by 2pm on Wednesday, 3 June, she will leave the DA no option but to litigate," DA spokesperson on trade and industry Dean Macpherson said.
Macpherson said hair salons were able to implement sanitary protocols and it was unacceptable that Dlamini Zuma had provided no evidence to motivate why they were not allowed to resume trade in terms of regulations governing level 3 of the country's Covid-19 lockdown, which came into effect on Monday.
"The continued ban of the personal care services industry bars hundreds of thousands of people from earning an income during an incredibly stressful and financially devastating period in South Africa," he said.
"The Covid-19 pandemic is ripping lives and livelihoods apart and adding more dependents to the roll of grant recipients every day."
Macpherson noted many who earned their living from personal care services were single mothers who had no other source of income, and the ban was adding to the ranks of those rendered jobless by the lockdown.
The letter from the opposition party's lawyers demands that Dlamini Zuma name the "relevant Cabinet minister" mentioned in the amended schedule of regulations she gazetted for level 3 as being consulted on whether particular industries were allowed to reopen.
They further ask whether a determination was specifically made that the personal care services industry was not deemed safe to resume trade, and if so, who made the decision and for what reasons.
Dlamini-Zuma is facing two separate court challenges to the continuing ban on the sale of tobacco products in terms of the lockdown regulations.
African News Agency/ANA
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