The darkest hour is just before dawn. Or so they say. But our long, dark night seems to go on forever.
Economically and politically, the new dawn has long been promised. But alas, the sun refuses to rise. The data in the series of releases from StatsSA last week could not have come as a shock to a realistic observer. The sobering, if not tragic, facts they reveal about our economy show how long the journey ahead is, and how hard undoing the legacy of corruption will be. Sadly, we have merely scratched the surface in terms of growth-inducing reforms.
StatsSA told us, in the Labour Force Survey, that the unemployment rate jumped to 29% in the second quarter.
Close on a third of our compatriots remain without income-generating employment. And that is only the official number, which our government pretends is the unemployment rate.
The real jobless number of 38.5% is too embarrassing to admit. The number of unemployed people in SA is 6.7 million. That is the combined population of Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho and Eswatini. And we wonder why crime has shot through the roof?
Of course, nobody was shocked or outraged. We have long become inured to this absurd level of poverty. We seem to regard it as inevitable. Instead, outrage was reserved for another politician caught lying. A president lying, under oath nogal, is abominable. But we choose, it seems, to find Cyril Ramaphosa’s lie about his campaign funding far worse than the fact that children and the infirm are going to bed on empty stomachs.
Before anyone had time to absorb this unemployment statistic, Risenga Maluleke, the statistician-general, released another sobering set of numbers the following day.
The 2019 National Poverty Lines report told us that the current monthly R420 child support grant has been falling short of keeping hunger at bay for five years now. According to the report, a person now needs R561 a month to buy enough food. It’s called the food poverty line. This is enough to buy staples like mealie meal, some vegetables and protein.
In October the Treasury will increase the child support grant by R10 a month. Together with the R1,000 monthly child foster grant and the old-age pension payout of R1,780, social welfare will cost the taxpayer R567bn this year.
While this sum is the single largest expenditure item in the budget, the National Poverty Lines report sadly shows it is not enough. The country cannot afford the current payments, let alone the bill for matching the R561 poverty line. As it is, this expenditure on the most vulnerable members of society is at risk of being abruptly terminated.
It is not only material poverty that should worry patriotic South Africans. The real threat to growth and stability is the poverty of ideas among those we have elected to office.
In their lust for power, they have resorted to ambushing one another. In so doing they have neglected their duty of care. It is not the “poorest of the poor” they wish to serve once they obtain political office. This is a selfish struggle for which we, the people, will pay dearly.
Social grants must be paid out of ever-dwindling tax revenues. But there is neither a plan nor the will to fix the economy. And we, the people, can only watch in horror as the theatre of fools plays itself out.