"The announcements made indicate that the Minister and her Department know nothing about the challenges currently faced by the tourism and hospitality sectors," said DA shadow minister of tourism, Manny de Freitas. 

The minister announced earlier in the day that the nighttime curfew, which previously ended at 9pm, would be extended to 10pm. 

She said that in discussions with the restaurant sector, the impact of the curfew on trading hours and the alcohol ban were flagged as the two main constraints on business.

"To comply with the current curfew regulation, restaurants are unable to serve dinner to their customers, which means that they are unable to operate at peak time of their business day," she said.

"In response to this challenge, Cabinet has agreed to move the curfew to start at 10pm to allow for uninterrupted dinner service at restaurants. We believe that this change will go a long way towards increasing their revenue generation.

"The sale of alcohol remains prohibited."

But De Freitas said the extension by one hour meant that staff and anyone patronising restaurants would, in reality, need to leave such establishments at 9pm.

This was to ensure that they were in their homes in time to meet the “new” curfew time. 

"Unbelievably, the Department of Tourism officials confirmed that people’s freedom of movement would be curtailed because “dinner takes place at 8pm” – the ANC government has got to a stage that it now feels it can decide for South Africans when they will have dinner," said De Freitas. 

He said the announcement that only intra-provincial tourism leisure activities would be permitted "simply does not go far enough". 

"Tourism establishments will continue to be hamstrung because they will not receive sufficient guests to be able to continue operating."

He said the DA reiterated its calls on government to open the tourism and hospitality sectors in the Western Cape in light of the province managing to capacitate its health system, and because its Covid-19 infection rate was plateauing. 

"We will be submitting parliamentary questions to Minister Kubayi-Ngubane about the criteria, science, and claims of consultation to develop and draw up the updated regulations. In addition, the DA is launching a nationwide petition demanding that the tourism and hospitality sectors be opened up as in reality these regulations do nothing to save lives and livelihoods," he said. 

African News Agency