By Naadiya Adams – @Miss_Naadiya

In the days that followed President Cyril Ramaphosa’s address to the nation on January 11^th, criticism ensued over the restrictions and many said the president must answer.

While Ministers Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Aaron Motsoaledi briefed media and have given some context into the latest restrictions, the country wants to hear from the President himself.

Political Analyst Sanusha Naidoo says she believes a Q & A with Ramaphosa following his address is an important nation building tool.

“Maybe that accessibility, would be a little bit more interesting and it will create more trust, create more confidence in some of the issues that the public are raising as issues that are not being discussed or they don’t feel like they are getting enough answers too and that becomes a critical dimension.”

The characteristics of the pandemic have been described as a black swan event in that it has taken nations completely by surprise. And while we can look to other nations as an example of what’s to come and how we can deal with it, Naidoo says the Western nations are not always the best guide as they’re structural make up, differs greatly from that of South Africa.

“To a large extent we must actually start moving away from this idea that everything can be looked at and borrowed or extrapolated from the West or from Other countries whose structural conditions may not necessarily mirror our structural conditions. Our structural conditions vs the UK is not the there!”

She says grants offered to households as seen in the UK may be an alleviation of the pandemic on people to some extent, but they are in no way a solution. Naidoo says we need to look at our own economic model to gauge how best we can address the problem we face here.

“Is this economic model that we have based on a trickledown effect, is it sustainable? No, its not. We know that this model has exacerbated the suffering, the impact of socio-economic conditions, poverty, inequality. I mean we know that this model essentially needs to be thought about in a much more critical way.”

Naidoo says developing domestic consumption is part of the way forward, while also addressing the huge salary inequalities we see in the work place.

Listen to the full interview here: