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Holomisa coordinates R700k PPE towards Eastern Cape's fight against Covid-19

UDM leader Bantu Holomisa on Monday handed over R702,000 worth of personal protective equipment.
UDM leader Bantu Holomisa on Monday handed over R702,000 worth of personal protective equipment.
Image: LULAMILE FENI

United Democratic Movement (UDM) leader Bantu Holomisa has handed over R702,000 worth of personal protective equipment (PPE) to heath care centres, special schools, hospices and old age homes in the Eastern Cape.

Holomisa said he was donating the PPE in his capacity as the chair of the Champions of the Environment Foundation.

The beneficiaries  in the OR Tambo, Alfred Nzo, Joe Gqabi, Amathole, Chris Hani Buffalo City and Nelson Mandela Bay metros, reports DispatchLIVE.

Truckloads of the PPE were offloaded at the Mthatha Resource Centre in the Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital on Monday before being distributed to beneficiaries.

These included 1,600 face masks; 1,000 latex gloves; 1,800 face shields; 2,400 50ml bottles of sanitisers; 768 one-litre bottles of sanitisers; and 100 25-litre containers of sanitisers.

Holomisa said: “This is an effort to ensure that our health care workers who are in the frontline against the Covid-19 battle, as well those most vulnerable — the elderly, frail and the disabled — are protected and not easily exposed to this virus.”

Holomisa said associations representing health care workers had every right to complain about dire shortage of PPE. .

Last week Holomisa, along with the Savoy Spar in Mthatha, donated 500 face shields to the Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital in Mthatha.

Holomisa called on people, especially those in rural areas, to adhere to the national lockdown regulations and stay home.

“I have learnt with shock that some residents are afraid of others and are hiding in forests. I have phoned police minister Bheki Cele as other people are refusing to be quarantined and isolated,” he said.

Even though the lockdown would be relaxed from level 5 to level 4 on Friday, “we are still extremely far from being out of the woods”, Holomisa said.

“We cannot afford to relax. We must approach the slow return to normality and 100% economic activity with discipline, patience and respect for the law.”

Heath district managers and Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital management applauded Holomisa's donation and called on others to follow suit.

The UDM leader said his party had pledged R300,000 to the Solidarity Fund from contributions of their public representatives.

“In addition to the R300,000 we have distributed R200,000 worth of food parcels to the destitute people. We have not used any councillors, but traditional leaders in distributing more than 600 food parcels in various villages,” said Holomisa.


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