Africa's Best Read
My partner asked me why I have stopped writing about South Africa. In this awful time of genocide in the Gaza Strip, people around the world are finding some relief in sharing a collective voice through writing. Why, he asked, did I stop writing earlier this year.
I work with social security policy. I study what is right and wrong with our national systems of income distribution and income security, and the causes and effects of emergent dysfunctions. I also analyse the effects of the policy solutions that the government has implemented, and I extensively study international comparisons to see whether we could do things better, differently or even try to develop new ways of understanding phenomena and introducing new systems to meet these.
The fact that South Africa is the most unequal country in the world. The fact that the richest 0.1% of South Africans own a quarter of the wealth, and that 3 500 people own 15% of it. The fact that even having a job does not guarantee you a decent life given the vast inequalities in salaries — despite the official national minimum wage. The fact that legislation has not broken the apartheid racially discriminatory wage policies.
In fact, the state seems to begrudge the policies that it does well in terms of meeting people’s needs. For years, when congratulated on providing small income grants to children and older people — people who are not meant to be in the labour market — government officials would state that they were still committed to “graduating” people off grants.
If the opposition is not interested in introducing new and better policies, why are they in the running?
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