'It's almost like being at war': Cyril Ramaphosa

On why his government took so much time to acquire the Covid-19 vaccine.

If we had the money to do what many countries have done — pre-pay, or to say, “Pfizer, you are developing one, we will give you money without knowing whether it will succeed”, “Johnson & Johnson, we will give you money not knowing whether it will succeed.” Maybe if we had the money we could have done that, but we didn't have the money. So, those northern countries have been able to be successful because many of them did that.

On where the money for the vaccines will come from. 

We are going to have the money, it will come from Treasury. There is just no way we can say, when it comes to saving the lives of South Africans, that we don't have the money. The money will be there. It has to be there to save the lives of South Africans. That one will be my bottom line.

On his experience of the pandemic.

Well, it has been stressful, I must admit. It has been very stressful. It is not easy when you are in a position of leadership to see people and your citizens dying in the way that they are.

It is a difficult one, because even as president you are given the responsibility for the lives of people, to safeguard the lives of South Africans and to see how best we can save lives.

It has rested on my shoulders, and if anything has kept me sleepless at night, this is it because it is not pleasant to hear reports that 800 people are dead in one day.

So many people have died and you feel it, as though [it was] your own family member. So that has been a great concern and it does take a toll on your emotions as a human being. So it is difficult and I guess it is difficult for many leaders about the world. I have seen a number of other leaders about the world who have also been taken over by emotion. We are human, I am also human, I am touched by the suffering that our people are going through.

On being personally affected by the virus.

There is just one family member who passed away but fortunately, touch wood, we have not had many in our family and so my heart goes out to many South Africans who have lost their loved ones.

I have heard of families where up to four or five people are gone and some of them have been infected at events like funerals and so on and so on. It is heavy, it is a heavy burden to bear. And on top of that it is compounded by the economic situation. It is all very well to hear that people are dying but when you see people suffering from hunger and when you see people losing their jobs, when you know what the affect is going to be, it does become quite burdensome.

On whether he has done his best to fight the disease.

I would like to believe that. I think personally we have given it all that we could. Both at a personal level as well as at a government level. Both in terms of the effort that we have put in as well as in terms of the financing that we have had to draw from government.

A number of government programmes have had to stop so that we can channel resources, it has almost been like being at war, where everything is channelled towards the war effort. So it has been a real testing time on everybody.

On whether relief will be given to sectors affected by the current lockdown.

There are many things that we are obviously going to be looking at, not necessarily tax relief as such. But there have been packages that have been put in place. For instance, we suspended the skills development levy, which was a tax relief of some sort.

And there are a number of many other measures that we can still consider. So, we will give consideration to a whole host of things that we need to do to defend and protect the lives of the people.

On how the government will fund the mooted basic income grant.

That is the biggest challenge. I think the case is being made and has been made for a grant of some sort to try to uplift the livelihoods of South Africans, and the question is where do you peg it, and we need to debate that. We need to look at that. I think we need to examine the question of the efficacy of the basic income grant and thereafter ask yourself, do we have the financial resources to support it...?

On who would qualify.

There are arguments for universality and arguments that it should be maybe based on a means test. And I think a means test, to me, would seem to be a way that you can look at it once you have the resources, because otherwise it becomes quite expensive.

His views on the proposal that those who qualify perform some kind of work in return.

There are aspects of that and other countries have done it, like Brazil. There are countries that attach some obligation on the part of the citizen for something like that. So it is open.

On the likelihood of this year's local government elections being postponed.

The current plan is that they are proceeding. We haven't received any indication on any change of that decision.

On whether the CR17 campaign funds scandal has weakened his fight against corruption.

No, I don't say so. I really don't say so because that was an internal leadership contest issue, and for starters that was not stolen money.

Second, it was money that was donated and I have been the first one to say in the ANC that the ANC needs to look at how political contest campaigns are run and funded.

I have even proposed that if we accept that raising funds does happen then there needs to be auditing, there needs to be accountability at the end of that campaign where anybody who ran for an election must be able to say we have raised so much money, this is how the money was used and this is who the money went to.

And if there are to be limits on the money to be raised, then that needs to be said upfront. And it should also be said that no-one contributes more than a certain amount of money. So out of that process there have been a lot of lessons for us and I have been the one who has been upfront to say, “Because I went through this, I would like us to discuss it, as openly as possible and as thoroughly as possible so that the ANC learns from mistakes that could have been made about this, so that we can avoid what has ensued.”

And the ANC in its past discussions has come up to even suggesting [formalising the process] but we never really came up with rules and regulations.

Now this is the time. Now that we have gone through this process of baptism of fire, as it were.

On what should be done with ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule.

Well of course, I mean everybody, we have often said that we should all be accountable. We should be [accountable] to the laws of our country and there shouldn't be different laws for leaders and for people. So, we are all equal under the law. That to me is a given.

But this matter is being dealt with internally in the ANC and the guidelines are going to come out and the matter will be looked at properly.

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