Editorial: Don’t wait on the deplorables to save us

A hyena will not step aside from a feast [View this email in your browser]( FROM THE NEWSROOM April 28, 2022 [Mail & Guardian]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Instagram]( [YouTube]( Hi there, The time for platitudes has long passed. South Africa is no longer on a slippery slope, it is hurtling down that slope, careering full throttle to failed-state status, with the ANC determining the course and steering what is left of the looted ship. Let us take stock. Our economy is shrinking. There are no jobs for half of our youth. More than 60% of our local municipalities are in a dire state — a whisper away from being totally dysfunctional. Providing the most basic of services is near impossible. Mothers are giving birth on hospital floors. Criminals and cops collude in crime. Citizens are hungry. Leaders are looting. The Covid-19 pandemic did not make South Africa’s leaders rotten, it merely exposed how rotten they are and how incapable the government is. The recent floods have done the same, pulled what is left of the tattered mask from the faces of those we voted into power, those we trusted with our welfare and our money to lead us in times of distress. It has been a week now since the devastating floods ravaged KwaZulu-Natal, and to a far lesser extent, parts of the Eastern Cape. As the water recedes, tens of thousands are left with only shock, pain and confusion. They are overwhelmed with grief. Mothers, fathers, children are still suspected of being buried under metres of mud — thick, suffocating graves. Compounding this is that the few possessions survivors had are lost, and the probability that what is expected to come their way to help rebuild, the stuff for their very survival, will be feasted upon by unscrupulous cadres, contractors and officials. It is no longer even mildly controversial to say that only a portion of the funds and goods donated to the government for survivors of the disaster will reach the grieving, the vulnerable. President Cyril Ramaphosa knows it. And he knows that we — the voters, the taxpayers — know it. In his speech this week, he was unable to focus fully on comprehensive efforts to get the affected back on their feet. Why? Because he knew he had to attempt to first allay fears that donations and public money allocated to the victims would be plundered. What a deep shame that each and every time public funds have to be disbursed, we shake our heads because we know that thieves are circling the money like hyenas do a fresh carcass. What a shame that shame — a deeper and more teachable emotion than guilt when used for self-reflection — is not a more prominent word in our national lexicon. The president spoke of his shame. His shame. As if for four years he has not been a leader who knows his pack is awash with hyenas. Prior to this, he walked among the hyenas, unaware, we are told, of the appetites within. He reiterated his message during his Freedom Day speech, with many of the same hyenas still circling, watching. Shameful. A leader who is incapable of “dealing with” corruption — with the hyenas in his own party — cannot convincingly deal with the same in government or other spheres. Hyenas cannot be reformed; they cannot be made to step aside. Until they are dealt with swiftly and brutally, they will only grow fatter, while the patience of citizens grows thinner. Until next week, The M&G newsroom [Subscribe now]( Enjoy The Ampersand? Share it with your friends [Share]( [Share]( [Tweet]( [Tweet]( [Forward]( [Forward]( [Share]( [Share]( Copyright © 2022 Mail & Guardian Media LTD, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in to receive communications from the Mail & Guardian either at our website or by taking out a print subscription. Our mailing address is: Mail & Guardian Media LTD 25 Owl St BraamfonteinJohannesburg, Gauteng 2001 South Africa [Add us to your address book]( Want to change how you receive these emails? You can [update your preferences]( or [unsubscribe]( here.