“Irredeemable! ” It’s my word of the week.
It’s is a word that applies to those South Africans on the take; greedy South Africans who are prepared to enrich themselves at the expense of the poor and the needy. Irredeemable.
Then there are those, such as Dr Bandile Masuku, Gauteng Health MEC, who’s spent the week fighting for his reputation after allegedly being involved in a Covid-19 contract scam.
“I’m innocent,” he claimed while asking for a forensic audit of his department and welcoming an investigation by the Special Investigating Unit.
There’s an appropriate proverb in the English language: “Give a dog a bad name and hang him.” This is inextricably linked with the saying: “It’s very difficult to lose a bad reputation, even if it’s unjustified.
Then, of course, there’s turning up like a bad penny, those bad eggs who keep on doing what they keep on doing — which is not doing the right thing.
How do we distinguish the good guys from the bad guys?
South Africans are so battered by the sheer force of the numbers of those who are on the take that it is impossible to distinguish between who is honourable and trustworthy and who is not. The word recidivist — repeat offenders who are habitual criminals — is deeply embedded in our thinking.
We South Africans are, sadly, well acquainted with our fellow countrymen who are happy to steal from the communal coffers, to enrich themselves with money reserved for helping those most in need; the hungry, the poor, the unemployed. And now, especially now, the sick.
The worst of it is that these criminals appear to be getting away with the theft of public money. Despite months of evidence presented to the judicial commission of inquiry into allegations of state capture, aka the Zondo commission, there has not been one arrest or conviction for fraud or corruption.
We’re in the middle of what is, essentially, the worst time that any of us will ever experience in our lifetime. We are literally surrounded by illness, and live in fear that someone we are close to, someone we love, could die. So you would think that our communal attention would be focused on helping get through this time of pandemic.
Not so.
This week, for the first time in this country’s history, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved a $4.3bn loan. (I tried to convert this sum into rand, and the number of zeros just became so long, I stopped.)
Of course, the purpose of this emergency fund is to help those who’ve been affected by Covid-19 as well as to help with fighting the coronavirus pandemic in whatever way is necessary. One critical area is personal protection equipment (PPE) needed by frontline workers to keep themselves safe from infection.
The day the announcement was made, BBC World devoted four minutes ... to the granting of the IMF loan. Three of those four minutes were devoted to graft
Last week, a friend with cancer had to undergo an emergency procedure at a private facility where the nurses were on a go-slow. Their complaint was that those assigned to the Covid-19 wards were being asked to wear rubbish bags as protection. Anecdotally, the nurses also claimed they were being asked to re-use their disposable masks for a week, rendering them ineffective.
The $4.3bn loan is, I understand, the largest sum given to any country so far. From its base in Washington, the IMF issued a statement saying it wanted to “support the authorities” efforts in addressing the challenging health situation and severe economic impact of the Covid-19 shock”.
Once the pandemic is behind us, the statement said, there will be a “pressing need to ensure debt sustainability and implement structural reforms to support the recovery and achieve sustainable and inclusive growth”.
Admirable goals. Lofty goals.
There have been more than 450,000 confirmed cases in SA with more than 7,000 deaths. We hold the unhappy title of being the country with the highest number of infections and deaths on the continent.
Our draconian lockdown had a devastating effect on the economy. Long before the arrival of this deadly coronavirus our unemployment figures were abysmal. Also, there was already hunger and despondency and despair and anger. In the months since March, the levels of these have exploded with ferocity unseen in our history.
So you’d think that the announcement of relief in the form of a $4.3bn package that promised aid would be welcomed. Instead, we South Africans have responded with scepticism, and genuine concerns as to whether the enormous sum of money will be put to good use.
We are still reeling from President Cyril Ramaphosa’s recent announcement that he will clamp down on the looting of SA’s emergency funds. We read with amazement The Sunday Times’ stories about the astonishingly large amounts that have already found their way into the coffers of the unscrupulous.
So there should be no surprise that we are incredulous about what will be done to stop thieves from siphoning off from the IMF’s $4.3bn.
The day the announcement was made, BBC World devoted four minutes (a very long time for an international broadcast network) to the granting of the IMF loan. Three of those four minutes were devoted to graft. Theft. Our corruption, it seems, is our country’s signature.
At a time when people are dying, when the economy has contracted, when people are losing/have lost their jobs, their homes, their lives — we’re worrying about theft.
Questions are being asked on national radio talk shows, on personal social media posts, in webinars and zoom meetings: Who will keep track of that vast sum of money lent to us, at great cost? Who will ensure it will be spent where it is most needed?
We are wondering who we can trust, if anyone.
We can see the foxes sent to guard the hen house lick their lips as they eye the $4.3bn pot ready for plunder.
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