Johannesburg – The entertainment, restaurant and fitness industries are among the hardest hit by Covid-19 lockdown regulations and continue to suffer with limited trading hours under lockdown level 3 rules.
The government has now called on them to help motivate people to get vaccinated by granting incentives.
But not all are on board.
CEO of the Restaurant Association of South Africa Wendy Alberts said she was fed up with the government.
“Before we entertain incentives, the government must listen to our issues, which we raised months ago. They need to compensate the industry for the huge losses we’ve incurred, they can’t even guarantee that we can stay open when the next wave hits,” said Alberts.
Teveshan Padiachee, the owner of a fairly new restaurant, Countess, in Melville, Joburg, said he was willing to work with any health establishment that wanted to set up a vaccination site or testing site close to his premises.
Padiachee, 31, said he would not be able to incentivise those with vaccination cards because he would not know if the documents were the real deal.
“It’s possible that people can come with fraudulent documents, we need a better system. I don’t believe in forcing people to get the vaccine,” he said.
Nightclub and Joburg Life owner Deelan Moodaley said his livelihood came from the people who socialised and partied, and many like him were struggling to have a stable income.
He said he did not support the incentive drive because people should “do the responsible thing and get vaccinated to save yourself”.
Romeo Jagjiban, the owner of a nightclub and bar, Dejavu, on the West Rand, said he planned to have a “Jab to Jive” event in the coming weeks.
“We are thinking of rewarding the youngsters who do get vaccinated with something like free entry or a free drink – the details will be worked out. The quicker I get to operating normal nightclub hours, the better for my staff who need a stable income. Now we only operate as an eatery and bar and lock up at 9pm.”
Millient Rakgate from Dream Body Fitness in Sunninghill said they were offering their members a R500 discount on signing up and renewing contracts, however, proof of vaccination must be shown. Grant Austin of Fit SA, which represents about 350 small gyms countrywide, said they were looking at the legalities when it came to incentives for vaccines.
“We will have a better idea in a few weeks as to what steps to take – including having staff vaccinated,” he said.
Gillian Elson of Planet Fitness said they would be offering an incentive to people who were vaccinated from next month. Partnering with some of the major vaccine sites, as people get vaccinated, they will receive a complimentary voucher to attend any branch countrywide. Rosemary Anderson, the national chair of Federated Hospitality Association of Southern Africa, said a time might indeed come when the government would be forced to introduce proof of vaccination to enter all restaurants, fitness centres and indoor entertainment venues – purely from the necessity of needing to protect lives and livelihoods.
“Governments have realised … any continuation of lockdowns will be causing a poverty and social disintegration pandemic – which will dwarf the Covid-19 pandemic in terms of harm to citizens, their economies and their countries, which will take generations to reverse.
“Vaccination requirements are not a new thing, we have just not been exposed to pandemics for a number of decades and have forgotten that restrictions like this used to be the case, even for the purpose of simply entering a country,” she said.
“As South Africa, we are fortunate we can see what is done successfully elsewhere in the world and we can strive to achieve the same results and open up our economy fully once again,” Anderson said.
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