Thought:

The scrambling by the government of South Africa to deal with COVID19 & arrive at a consistent policy direction shows the level of neglect that we’ve lived under.

a thread....

The Social Development Department in Gauteng anticipated 15,000 homeless to be housed during this crisis.

To-date they’ve identified 54,000 people and the count is still rising.

That’s near on four-fold.

Talk about failing your Stats Exam.

Just yesterday MEC Lesufi bemoaned schools that wouldn’t allow their facilities to be used to shelter the homeless.

You have to ask the question, absent of COVID19, what was governments plan for the homeless & indigent.

The decisioning, policing & then reneging by the Dept of Transport on maximum allowances in minibus taxis shows just how badly public transportation for the poor has been managed, if at all, by the State.

And so it prompts a policy renege.

The uproar & subsequent ricochet of protests of retail stores (& not Spaza shops) being declared essential services show a poor policy framework to manage & equalize retail & food distribution as a systematic failing - and has been since 94 - by our Goverment.

Just yesterday it was reported that Minister Dlamini-Zuma made it possible for spaza shops to start trading in townships.

A stark contrast to the video that circulated a few days ago of soldiers instructing spaza shops to close.

Another policy renege.

The lack of water is a South Africanism. Seeing visuals of poor South Africa walking untold distances in gravel roads to collect their daily stipend of water had become part of our national mirage.

It was a pixel seen daily on the news. We’d even lost sensitivity toward it.

Yet, suddenly the Department of Water Affairs has been able to make water available.

This presents an issue we must address in South Africa: do our procurement rules serve the public or not.

The use of “deviation” to procure goods during this crisis means that the state has had the funds to procure those goods. It’s simply lacked the agility to be responsive.

The wave yet to come is the number of self-employed & survivalist business people (think about hawkers) who are now unable to earn an income but haven’t been counted amongst South Africa’s unemployed by the narrow definition for years.

The opening form on the government website to claim for losses due to Coronavirus asks for a registration number.
Later, I’m sure, they’ll ask for proof of income.

How do informal traders, hawkers & sole traders do any of these?
How do they claim for lost income or unemployment?

Our state has been living under the illusion of a “poorly managed state”.

They are about to realize that actually we have been functioning in conditions that if stress-tested, can only be defined as “mirroring a neglect.”

For years our politicians have enjoyed a near-free ride. The weekly business class flight to Cape Town. Accomodation at the Taj. Arguments in verbosity about non-descript policies in caucus.

Here is the COVID19 silver-lining: our state has to finally confront its own reality.

After Coronavirus, we now know the government CAN deliver services.

Forced to, this government can deal with homeless crisis, informal traders, lack of access to housing & poor access to water.

Forced to, this government can deal with the issues of service delivery.

The COVID19 botch-up shows that our policy framework has been based on the numeric (accounted for) minority.

This virus has forced our government deal with itself. To deal with & for it’s people. All of them.