On 23 April, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced: “We will implement what we call a risk-adjusted strategy through which we take a deliberate and cautious approach to the easing of current lockdown restrictions”. According to the President: “We developed an approach that determines the measures we should have in place based on the direction of the pandemic in our country. As part of this approach there will be five coronavirus levels,” but what does this mean for businesses like yours.
Regulations that will impact your business
Transportation
The Transport minister Fikile Mbalula distributed two of the mandates concentrated on the new night-time curfew and travel times. People may not leave their homes between 20h00 and 05h00. Individuals exempted from this are essential service workers or individuals that need to manage a crisis.
In any case, the new mandates express that South Africans will have a 60 minutes ‘grace period’ at night. Public transport and private transport can operate from 05h00 to 20h00 with a grace time of an hour inside which to finish the journey and drop off at 21h00. This curfew time does not have any significant bearing to South Africans making significant distance trips between provinces between 1 – 7 May.
Tax collection
The South African Revenue Services will resume operations from the 5th of May 2020. It is no surprise that they are classified as an essential service and therefore operations must resume as such.
Operational organisations such as agricultural companies may expect their employees to work their usual hours. However, the number of staff there will be a need to schedule staff to accommodate the 30% occupancy requirements. Level 4 lockdown is a slight relief from complete lockdown. It is still about performing functions cautiously to prevent the spread of the virus any further.
