Tuesday, January 26, 2021
By YOURI KEMP
Tribune Business Reporter
ykemp@tribunemedia.net
Super Value’s principal yesterday said he does not believe in "emergency powers", while decisions relating to them should be taken by the Cabinet and not just one man.
Rupert Roberts, speaking to Tribune Business after the Prime Minister unveiled plans to extend the COVID-19 restrictions into May 2021, said: “I don't believe in emergency powers. I think we elected our representatives, and representatives were selected for Cabinet, and I think they should decide these matters in Cabinet.
“I believe in counsel. I don't believe in giving it to the one or the few. I think it would be best if emergency powers were left up to the Cabinet. If it is extended to Cabinet, I don’t have a problem with it.”
Arguing that collective Cabinet discretion would be best in these “perilous times,” Mr Roberts said: “If something were to go wrong we want someone in authority to fix it.”
Given that mutated variants of COVID-19, said to more transmissible and deadly, have emerged in the UK, South Africa and Brazil, Super Value's chief argued that there should be a “bigger body” to deal with the situation rather than just relying on one man. ]
Mr Roberts said: “I would think that one person would seek counsel from the business community, medical professionals and from the political arena. But in dealing with the medical professionals they have always been forthcoming with us, and with whatever we asked for. We would just like to see this thing come to an end.”
Dwayne Higgs, WHIM Automotive's general manager, said of the emergency powers extension: “We have been doing OK thus far with the easing of the restrictions, and I think the country has been handling this pandemic fairly well. I wish we could go back to normal but I don’t see that happening right now.”
Mr Higgs added that the curfew does not really affect his business as it closes at 5pm, but he wants the freedom to go to family functions and move about as he sees fit. He added: “We will try to operate the best we can in the market for the time being, but May is a bit long down the road.”
Comments
tribanon says...
Rupert Roberts has a point.
The word has been out for many months now among the more honourable and reputable scientific community that there's no running away from, hiding or otherwise escaping the Red China Virus and its rapidly evolving mutations.
There is now general agreement that not even the costly vaccines, which have been so quickly developed by the greedy big pharma companies and mostly paid for by taxpayers around the world, will prove effective at stopping the rapidly mutating strains of the original virus at the end of the day.
And just think, the rapidly mutating Red China Virus was very deliberately engineered by the sinister Communist Chinese Party with the help of their friends like Fauci and Gates, who have been deeply involved in promoting the most evil kinds of virology research for decades. It's all about demented and very evil global deep state actors wanting to create biological tools for controlling the numbers of elderly and sickly in the global population as well as the mobility and other freedoms of the vast majority of mankind.
The complete destruction of our small nation's economy also suits 'their' agenda of global domination, and of course we all have come to learn the extent to which Minnis is both deferential and subservient to his Communist Chinese masters.
Posted 27 January 2021, 11:33 a.m. Suggest removal
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