Minister of co-operative governance & traditional affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has argued that the benefit of a liquor ban outweighs the costs, adding that lockdown restrictions had been “remarkably successful” in reducing the spread of the coronavirus.
The government was responding to SAB, a subsidiary of the world’s largest brewer, AB InBev, which is seeking to have the regulation to ban alcohol sales from June 28 set aside. This the fourth time since the country imposed lockdown restrictions in 2020 that sales of liquor have been prohibited. The case was heard on Friday in the Western Cape High Court by judge Robert Henney.
In legal papers, Dlamini-Zuma argued that lockdowns were “remarkably successful, in the sense that the contagion moderates within weeks of their imposition”.
Dlamini-Zuma’s comments were made even as SA’s current excess death toll has exceeded 176,770 deaths, almost three times higher than the official death tally from Covid-19, reflecting those caused directly by the coronavirus, and “collateral” deaths due to people’s inability to obtain health services.
SAB concerned about impact of the sales bans, which have totalled 21 weeks since March 2020.
“Most of its overheads continue to be incurred but the income to meet them is no longer there. The losses, on a daily basis, are enormous,” SAB said in court papers.
Dlamini-Zuma, in legal papers, accused SAB of only “acting in its commercial interests”, and not taking the larger context of the pandemic into account.
As concerns have mounted about the costs of lockdowns to SA’s stagnant economy that saw over a million job losses in 2020, the minister argued in court that research by both the “World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as well as other leading economists, indicates that the long-term benefits of controlling the pandemic outweigh the cost”.
SAB’s main case relied on a technical argument that argued the way the minister had written the liquor sales prohibition was without a time frame and thus was not a temporary suspension of alcohol sales, but a full-time prohibition. This, it says, exceeded Dlamini-Zuma’s powers under the Disaster Management Act and was thus unlawful.
The brewer also argued that the cabinet had decided on a 14-day alcohol ban from June 28 and Dlamini-Zuma had gone beyond the decision of the cabinet and written rules that banned alcohol indefinitely.
“The truth is that the first respondent has sought to sidle emergency powers into law under the guise of disaster management so as to avoid the democratic scrutiny she would otherwise have been obliged to face,” SAB said in its papers.
Concern about the time frame in the regulations was relevant as a state of disaster could technically last years, said SAB advocate Alfred Cockrell .
Cockrell told the Western Cape High Court: “A state of disaster can be rolled over on a monthly basis. Every month the state of disaster is extended by the minister — so in principle — this state of disaster could be in perpetuity.”
Advocate for the government, Karrisha Pillay, said SA disagreed, adding the state of disaster applies for a limited period of time and the liquor ban was thus not of indefinite duration when read in the context of the disaster management act.
SAB also accused the government of not following a legally required process of consultation when changing regulations, and the changes were therefore illegal.
The government’s response suggested that it sought to keep a ban quiet, noting that had it given any hint of a ban crowds would have descended on liquor outlets “undermining the very objective sought to be achieved — namely, to restrict access to alcohol for a limited period of time to achieve the purpose of reducing the impact on healthcare services”.
Judgment was reserved.
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