God, AIDS, Africa & HOPE

Praises are sung again in many quarters of South Africa about the leadership of President Ramaphosa after his speech yesterday evening – twitter and social media repeat the billions of Rand promised: R500 billion strong economic and social support package with an increase in child support grants of R300 next month and R500 a month from June to October; all other grant beneficiaries will receive an additional R250 a month and to top it: a special coronavirus grant of R350 a month will go to those who are unemployed and do not receive any other form of grant or UIF payment. The Department for Social Development, UIF and SASSA are named to execute parts of this money blessings and the dawn of a new economy was promised after the hardship of lockdown- to be lifted
… gradually … to be announced on Thursday.

At the same time Ramaphosa authorised the employment of an additional 73180 members of SANDF to assist SAPS in keeping law and order – either an admission, that 2820 soldiers already employed are not enough to enforce the lockdown next to the usual law enforcement agencies or a promise for further painful measures to come.
Additional Cooperative Governance Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma floated the idea that the Western Province, Gauteng and Kwazulu-Natal as the hotspots of Corona-19 could see a prolonged lockdown while other provinces are able to lift some restrictions earlier.
Accompanied is all this by the news that Eskom announces load shedding will resume after lockdown and news of SAA and the land bank standing before collapse.

Mixed messages, hope and realities – and certainly one reality is that all plans and all leadership needs people to execute them.
The blatant failure of SASSA, the national Ministry of Social Development and UIF to deliver so far on a much smaller scale of measurements; the absolute questionable performances of Ministers like Mbalula, Cele and so many more are not giving rise to the hope that the new economy will fly or reach the people in a way that uplifts and renews society.
Cadre deployment and corruption – past and ongoing – is once again the danger to bring down and hinder some of the plans we heard last night from the President.
Bringing in outside financial institutions to assist means that within the ANC those hard-liners lead by Ace Magashule must finally admit defeat and abandon their radical economic transformation plans.

I did not see a self-confident Ramaphosa last night, I rather had the impression that deep in his heart he knew that all the promises, all the billions of Rand hang at the end on being able to win the battle within the party but also the ability to execute on all levels of government – filtering down relief and good ideas without corruption and all the failures, administration is marred with at the moment.

The level of hunger and despair of the people in South Africa, acknowledged by the President last night and the current inability to deliver adequate help and assistance has to be mitigated at short notice to avoid a failure of all the plans we heard last night.
Words must translate in deeds the people feel, promised Rands must translate in filled stomachs, stimulus packages must hit the nail for those at the many margins of society soon and lockdown must end soon in a feasible manner for all South Africans, otherwise the fifth address of the President will go down in history as another pie in the sky.

Filed under: Africa, Politics and Society, Reflection, Society and living environment, South Africa, Uncategorized, despair, hunger, lockdown, Magashule, Ramaphosa, SANDF, SAPS, SASSA, south africa, stimulus package