Home

Restaurant Association requests meeting with President Ramaphosa

Reading Time: 2 minutes

The Restaurant Association of South Africa (RASA) has sent a letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa requesting to meet with him on Monday.

RASA says it will camp out at the Union Buildings until discussions on lifting the ban on alcohol and the 9pm to 6am curfew are concluded.

RASA earlier announced its intention to take government to court over its decision to ban the sale of alcohol.

In December, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that under the current restrictions the sale and transportation of alcohol are banned.

The move was due to the increasing number of alcohol-trauma-related cases that hospitals were facing last year, amid having to attend to an influx of COVID-19 patients.

The country is currently under alert adjusted Level 3 lockdown regulations. RASA CEO, Wendy Alberts, says the industry has been negatively affected.

The industry has been the most hard-hit by the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdown levels, which include shortened operating hours and a ban on the sale of alcohol.  

Alberts says there was no consultation before these measures were implemented 

She says it seems government does not care about the sustainability of the industry. 

“It is a very, very emotional, very devastating time for our industry as many of these restaurants will never ever be able to open and if we don’t do something immediately, we’re going to stand the chance of losing more and more restaurants every day. We need to have conversations with government. We need to let them hear the voice of the restaurants, of the industry, of the restauranteers and find a viable, workable solution that we can collaborate in both supporting government, in slowing down the curve, in being responsible, in executing all the protocols, in adhering to the regulations and finding ways that have the least impact on our industry.”

RASA intends to take the government to court:

SA’s latest COVID-19 stats:

575 more people have succumbed to COVID-19 related complications in South Africa in the past 24 hours. This brings the national death toll to 40 076. The cumulative number of coronavirus stands at 1 392 568.

Loading...

Loading…

Author

MOST READ