The DA’s provincial spokesperson on Community Safety and the North West Provincial Legislature’s member, Freddy Sonakile said Lehari announced at a public meeting in Ganyesa that the lockdown will come to an end on Friday. Sonakile further said this claim was not only bogus, but it also exposed Lehari’s ignorance on the lockdown regulations.

“The DA in North West will accordingly lay criminal charges. It is concerning that the MEC should be entrusted with community safety matters and overseeing the work of the police in the province, whilst he is displaying very limited knowledge of the laws of this country.

“It is further interesting that Lehari was able to rush to Ganyesa to go and mislead the public on the suspension of the lockdown when his office informed us that he is in the process of “recovering from an accident” and has been unable to perform some of his duties,” he said.

The DA raised concerns about the non-visibility of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in the taxi industry on 14 April 2020 and Lehari failed to respond to our questions, says goaded Sonakile. He added that they will also write to the North West Premier, Prof Job Mokgoro requesting him to instruct Lehari to retract his utterances and to consider disciplinary steps against him.

“This comes exactly 21 days after South African president Cyril Ramaphosa took action against one of his ministers, Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams following allegations of violating lockdown regulations. All South Africans should comply with the reasonable lockdown regulations with regards to staying at home, social distancing, and only access essential goods, irrespective of their position in society,” concluded Sonakile.