It would be inappropriate to diminish the significance of last week’s announcement by the government that it would be spending some R38bn towards cushioning households and firms affected by growing hardship. However, it’s about time we started a discourse about long-term interventions to the triple crisis of unemployment, poverty and hunger, and inequality.
The latest relief measures – including signing up cheques to individuals who are not earning any social grant and unemployment benefits for affected workers – were a response to the double blow on households and companies caused by another harder lockdown and, most recently, last month’s mayhem which erupted in parts of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) and Gauteng.
The latest harder lockdown was a response to the surge in covid-19 infections and fatalities – sometimes as high as 600 deaths in one day – amid slow vaccination. The lockdown, including a ban on liquor sales and inter-provincial travel, cost thousands of workers employed in restaurants and alcohol establishments who had to stay at home.
The twin blows of lockdown and last month’s mayhem merely added to the hardship that millions of South Africans were enduring: rising cost of living including this Wednesday’s fuel price increase, poverty, hunger and unemployment especially in excess of 50% among the youth.
The relief, albeit temporary (until next March in the case of the Covid-19 R350 grant), has been made possible by better than expected tax revenues, mainly from the mining industry, and reprioritisation of certain programmes in the departments of trade, industry and competition and small business development.
Finance minister Tito Mboweni and his National Treasury officials were at pains to explain that the measures were absolutely necessary, but would not bankrupt us as a nation or force us to raise new money through borrowing. He is correct on the first part: it would be irresponsible for the government to lock down citizens and watch them die.
Unlike in previous lockdowns, the government has demonstrated willingness to listen to those affected by the mayhem – thousands of uninsured small businesses especially in the townships’ malls and shopping centres.
Hopefully some of the financial help to small businesses will be in the form of grants.
The question we have to worry about is: what happens once these relief measures have been retrenched in coming months?
In the immediate term, we just have to redouble our efforts to procure as many vaccine dosages as we need, and we need to get them quickly into people’s shoulders.
While the pace of vaccination is gaining traction, we are facing a problem of vaccine hesitancy in parts of the country. This needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency, alongside the misinformation about the efficacy and side effects of the jabs.
We are not alone in battling vaccine hesitancy. Other jurisdictions including the United Kingdom and the US have had to roll out sweeteners to incentivise reluctant people to take the jab.
Also, the silent effects of the lockdown (inability to travel and socialise) are starting to show through mental health especially among frontline workers and religious leaders who never really went on lockdown. Anecdotal evidence is pointing towards rising reliance on drugs to cope with this depressing situation.
It would be counterproductive for us to have to resort to another lockdown when the fourth wave of this deadly virus strikes because we haven’t achieved population immunity by this summer.
Getting the economy back on its feet is a huge priority. We need a credible inclusive growth plan that absorbs the millions of youths roaming the streets of our townships and villages.
Among the suite of interventions on the table, the planned investment in infrastructure is a low-hanging fruit for creating temporary, low-skilled, employment for youths.
Simultaneously, we need to seriously consider a post-March 2022 social relief programme for those millions who have become reliant on it since Covid-19 broke out. Otherwise, we will find ourselves here again next year.
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