Crime-filled nation, led by a broken leader Our graves are full, and they are full of children.” These are the chilling words of a woman who captured the state in which crime figures have spiralled out of control in our country.
Police minister Bheki Cele’s job in recent years has been turned into attending imbizos, supposedly to address, ex-post facto, the cries of women and parents who have lost their children to merciless murderers and hardened criminals.
What value can we attach to those visits? In our book, we think they are a farce, and those who undertake them know it.
The women, as was reflected in The Sowetan last week, told, with broken hearts, the minister: “We have buried over 200 children here in our community … the graveyards are full. Where are our elderly people going to be buried?”
This is the daily cry of every black community, every black woman as manifest by the community of Westbury, as they lament the killing of their children.
Cele, as he has routinely been doing since he was elevated to his position nearly five years ago, sat on the VIP chair with other senior police officials in Westbury, west of Johannesburg, trying to quell the anger and frustration of desperate community members trying to make sense of the violence in their area, and getting no adequate answers but more platitudes from the minister.
Under the leadership of Cele, crime levels have soared. Communities live in fear. Yet President Cyril Ramaphosa appears not to be alive to this reality. If he were, why would a failed police minister such as Cele retain his cabinet post? What would be the logic of not firing him?
But Ramaphosa is a broken man, a lame duck. The Phala Phala scandal has weakened him.
Four decades ago, former US president Richard Nixon resigned because of the Watergate scandal and the cover-up that went with it, admitting that some of his judgments were wrong.
But because Ramaphosa has become a compromised leader, he sees nothing wrong in reappointing a failed police minister who fails to protect its citizens from mayhem and murder.
Also, what future is there for our children in a stagnating economy?
Statistics South Africa data released this week holds no hope for any school-leaving pupil or recently qualified university graduate.
The economy is in a bad shape, with nearly all economic sectors showing contraction. More worrying is the agriculture sector that has shrunk by 3.3% in the fourth quarter of 2022 after a promising growth of more than 30% in the previous quarter.
The implications are dire for consumers. Any contraction in the agriculture sector spells doom for them and they are likely to experience rising food prices.
The mining sector contracted by 7% in 2022. As contraction in our economy continues apace, the exacerbating factor is the inability of Eskom to keep the lights on.
Eskom and the government have a duty to stop loadshedding, otherwise the most vulnerable in society will be seriously affected.
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