From his vantage, how easy – and not entirely without reason – for the armchair critic to call Mzansi out as nothing but a melancholy ‘welfare state.’ Why wouldn’t he when some 30 million South Africans depend on some form of social grant? This figure shot up when government introduced the R350 relief of distress grant as a buffer during the Covid paCredibly, he qualifies the indictment, chalking it up to a government of nostalgic ex-commies who’ve swallowed the Soviet-era Ayahuasca of some sort of utopia. That Leninist platitude of a chicken in every pot. To be fair, the critics are mostly right.
Stomach politics have bloated the mass democratic revolution so severely as to be synonymous with boeppense and single malt whisky. Factionalism within the ruling class is a cause for wholesale looting because the fat cats are never sure when the gravy train will come to a halt. So best make it count while your horse is in power and you still have a chance. The people can wait but at least we’ve given them social grants to eke out minimal survival as we scratch our collective beaurocratic heads, incapable of effectively growing the economy.
It’s all fair comment, backed up by a corpus of documentary evidence derived from various commissions of enquiry and stellar investigative journalism. Politicking has evidently trumped sound economics. Thabo Mbeki, under whom there was at least some appreciable economic growth, was thrown out to the wolves, replaced by a leader who’d not done much schooling and whose tenure remains derided as ‘the nine wasted years.’ And for nearly three decades the social grants appeared to ensure the ANC’s victory at the polls. So the armchair critic could rest easy knowing his conclusions were not just a wily thumbsuck but a reflection of what’s happening on the ground.
And that’s exactly where this story takes us, away from the intellectual punditry to a town in the Karoo known as Colesberg. Under the Umsobomvu Local Municipality, in a province that contributes the least to the SA GDP, according to a document of the Colesberg Heritage Dialogue, a project that aims to empower the community, ‘write rewrite and reflect’ on the town’s marginalised history and introduce various heritage-themed projects, there are 29 555 people living under this municipality.
According to the municipality’s Intergrated Development Plan of 2022/2027, 42% of them are jobless, many more dependant on social grants, with 15.25% of households having no income at all. Only 29.6% have Matric, 7% have a tertiary qualification, some 15% have no schooling whatsoever. In view of the national unemployment critics, the statistics paint a bleak picture and those who take a dim view of the welfare situation may not appreciate anything worth writing home about. Except of course, the misery, disgruntlement and a town veering on those social ills that are common cause when you’re gripped by the clutches of poverty.
So on the social grant week – the proletariat’s payday – we decide to go out to see for ourselves what a welfare society might look like. What it translates to in a small-town economy where it’s a matter of survival foremost and whether any material wealth will come from your efforts is usually a fantastical dream. Expecting to see drooling, troubled nyaope users, beggars at every intersection and unwashed bodies, in the main we find struggling people who walk dignified and upright.
An unemployed mom sits enjoying fish and chips outside a take away joint with her daughter. Not exactly fine dining but it is probably the only meal that she hasn’t had to cook herself that she will enjoy this month. For her, her small business run from her home means that things aren’t so bad. She occasionally treats herself to small luxuries and nobody goes to bed hungry.
If there is at least one area in which the chattering class get it wrong, it’s in the assumption that those who rely on grants are lazy and have resigned themselves to being mere vassals to state benevolence. This couldn’t be further from the truth especially not for people like Mrs Mekile. In her 80s, the woman is a natural born hustler and her walk – strong and confident – amply proves it. For years, she’d haul her wares; a braaistand and the dough for the roostekoekies and meat for the braai pork chops to the centre of town. Monday to Saturday, that was her tariff but Sundays were her off days – only because God couldn’t be made to wait. Then the pandemic struck and it was goodbye to the extra income. She applied for the government stimulus package but nothing ever came of it. Today, in her flowing dress and doek, she’s pushing a trolley, the specials catalogue spread out in front of her, spending ‘Ramaphosa’s money’ as the locals refer to the grants.
The funding would’ve meant the world but there are no hard feelings. She has since transferred her business to someone else who is apparently doing well for herself.
You remember that story we once did on Sipho Sandi, the snazzily-dressed shebeen upstart? Well, his gripe, just as with Mrs Mekile, was the red tape barring the way for local entrepreneurs to access funding. He’s still at it, peddling booze whilst his wife rises to set-up her small food business in town. That’s the universal grievance here: government funding is a nightmare but the show must go on because waiting on that could mean starving and the furniture being repossessed.
For Nathi Mensah, it’s a matter of simply making the salon work. As a Ghanaian, it’s doubtful he’ll be getting any state sponsorship. During the month, business is sludgy but come the grant week, in walk grandmothers, the grandkids atow. The usually quiet salon is buzzing with youthful requests for haircuts in that style of the footballer Neymar.
‘It’s busy,’ says a grinning Mensah, ‘so at least there rent should be covered.’ The grant week, he says, makes a massive difference to his business month after month. Indeed, even the pavement outside is full of people with plastics full of groceries. Ditto the shops. Another aspect that is glaring are the number of grandmothers who are hands-on in the raising of the next generation, this alongside female-led households.
The people at the Colesberg Heritage Dialogue are amongst many who’ve seen the wisdom to get up and do things for themselves. They’ve put together a rather comprehensive policy document. In the end, they envision a Colesberg that will write its own story and showcase its history. One hopes that they will not meet similar hurdles that affect those on the grassroots. Obstacles through which they endure regardless: after all, they’ve learnt the hard way that sometimes in this world, it’s every man for himself. And the critics, especially the armchair variant, ultimately will do nothing for you.
