Diepsloot residents queue for food parcels. (Gallo Images, Sharon Seretlo)
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Diepsloot residents queue for food parcels. (Gallo Images, Sharon Seretlo)
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Freedom Day reminds us that we have overcome slavery and apartheid. Covid-19 has simply reminded us, once again, it is now time to overcome poverty, writes Jessie Duarte.
On Freedom Day, 27 April, we will once again celebrate the day when we became free as citizens in the country of our birth and the land of our ancestors.
So much weighed-in on that day 26 years ago.
We were looking at a new country and three years later, on 4 February 1997, our new dispensation would bring into effect a new masterly crafted and human rights inspired constitution.
Our bitter struggles for freedom had ended and a new struggle had begun.
A struggle now not for freedom or equality but for forging this new democracy, radical transformation of our economy, the return of the land to our people, the right to equal and quality education and health care, basic services such as water, electricity and housing.
The real struggle for freedom from want remains.
The triple reality of poverty, inequality and joblessness is our greatest battle. We can only win this battle if we have an inclusive economy, we are told.
The term inclusive economy is of course a term preferred by and large by the current big business community who reject the notion of radical economic transformation because it suggests, to them, changing the reality of the old guard owners of the means of production.
Misunderstanding it, they think it is too left and too aggressive.
Then came Covid-19.
A virus no one had prepared for in the fiscal planning.
The virus crisis brought into stark display our real challenges.
As the correct step to institute a lock down was announced, the chasms we know of and the sharp contradictions of the two economies came to the fore.
Yet we know, as the late Professor Ben Turok always reminded us, "wealth does not trickle down".
This version of the coronavirus only illustrated this more sharply for us.
The supply of food at a local township level became a problem when the small sellers were stopped from selling for the first two weeks. People who generally had access to food from street vendors and who lived in informal homes, many without fridges, had nowhere to buy daily necessities.
The large retail monopolies were overrun by food hoarders from the more affluent areas and food security for the poor stared us in the face.
Compounded with this lack of access to food at a grassroots level was the over 9 million school children who were at home without the benefit of the daily meal they were guaranteed at school.
While 16 million grant recipients received their grants, their usual township shop or street vendor was not there to provide the credit line of food for the month.
Many pensioners buy on credit and pay at the end of the month. Some may regard this as exploitation but it is a system that works and which was disrupted abruptly.
Correctly so, people needed to be off the streets.
The decision was correct because we must flatten the curve of infections and attempt to have a day with no infections. Yet the food security challenge in our country, known long before the onset of Covid-19 and its mitigating measures, seriously challenges this goal of flattening the curve.
In other words, the current lockdown measures not only exposed food insecurity but they also displayed the bias our political economy has towards big business and not to SMMEs.
We welcome the latest interventions made by President Ramaphosa and his administration.
The release of additional grants to the most vulnerable in our society will address the needs of our people. We hope too that SMMEs will be given priority so that through grants they will be able to recapitalize their goods and infrastructure.
Spaza shops must be granted the correct permits to trade and be allowed to trade. A small tomatoes seller, who grew the crop in the backyard, must be appreciated as a contributor to the economy.
The larger established stores are by far too distant from the poor, both in geography but also in means. They operate strictly on cash with no credit when the cash of poor households dries up.
We must recognise this because this is how the poor have survived with the local grocer for generations.
Our grant recipients, as a client, must be understood, not as beggars, but as people who keep the economy going and therefore must be appreciated as regulators of the economy.
This is radical economic transformation.
There should now be no doubt that the NHI must be implemented.
As we face this curve as well as await the possibilities of a second or third wave, our health systems must be ready and ease the problem of access to health care.
Currently, we are faced with 10 million unemployed people and there will be many more at the end of this period.
These grants and the R500 billion in relief announced by the president will be helpful but cannot replace the medium-to-long term job creation.
For this we need a strong SMME sector, the heart of any strong economy, and put in place measures, now already, which will strengthen this sector.
As we observe Freedom Day, it is apt to remember the words of our first democratic president, Ntate Nelson Mandela, when he said: "Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings."
Freedom Day reminds us that we have overcome slavery and apartheid. Covid-19 has simply reminded us, once again, it is now time to overcome poverty.
- Jessie Duarte is Deputy Secretary General of the ANC
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