Friday, 29 March, 2024
HomeMedico-LegalNDZ is 'pushing agenda against alcohol usage’ — wine farmers

NDZ is 'pushing agenda against alcohol usage’ — wine farmers

After receiving the record from the government on which it based its decision to ban alcohol sales during lockdown, wine farmers say most material points to the long-term harm of alcohol and is not related to the pandemic. Wine farmers are in the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) this month to challenge the ban on wine sales.

In a supplementary affidavit, Francois Rossouw, CEO of SA Agri Initiative, said Co-operative Governance & Traditional Affairs Minister Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma only focused on inputs which favoured the ban, notes a Pretoria News report.

During the current lockdown regulations the Minister should focus on the COVID-19 pandemic and how to alleviate its effects, he said. ‘It is not the time to push an agenda against alcohol usage,’ he said.

The Agri Initiative is one of the parties who along with several wine farmers will ask for an urgent order to lift the ban on the selling and transporting of wine under the COVID-19 lockdown regulations. The organisation is asking that the regulations imposed by Dlamini-Zuma be declared invalid and unconstitutional where it relates to the transportation and selling of wine.

The Minister has until the end of this week to file her opposing papers.

[link url="https://www.iol.co.za/pretoria-news/news/wine-farmers-head-to-court-to-fight-ban-e2be102e-3dcd-4fe7-b668-dbe0ae4499c1"]Full Pretoria News report[/link]

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