OR must be weeping

THE latest statistics from Statistician General Pali Lehohla on poverty in South Africa are heartbreaking. More than half of South Africans are poor. Most of the poor are children. Most of the unemployed are youth. Most of our children grow up from poverty to unemployment.

What a miserable state of affairs. It is anything but a better life for all. It’s a disgrace, and the ANC government should hang its head in shame, because under its watch, and in its name, while poverty has been on the rise, corruption has been on the increase. There is a direct link between the two. Put another way, state capture by the “Zuptas” has been at the expense of our people, the most vulnerable, the poorest of the poor. That was predictable. Now thanks to Lehohla, we have the proof. But is the ANC worried? Some of its leading lights have shown a public and callous disregard for the poor.

Minister of Water and Sanitation Nomvula Mokonyane, the chief Zuma praise singer, said in the wake of the rand falling with Zuma’s sacking of Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan: “Let it fall, we’ll simply pick it up again.” Then followed our junk status.

The stats of course are a recipe for disaster, and any self-respecting government would resign. Any president would pack his or her bags in shame.

Under Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki poverty levels fell drastically. Under Zuma and his friends the Guptas, poverty rose from from 53.2% of the population to 55.5%. This while they plundered state resources.

So they have literally taken the food from the mouths of the poor, the majority of our children and youth to feed their greed.

And they have the gall to declare this the year of one of the greatest and selfless freedom fighters the world has known, the late ANC president Oliver Reginald Tambo.

In StatsSA’s socio-economic profile by district of the poorest province, the Eastern Cape, the OR Tambo District has the lowest development indicators. And further shockingly, it has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world.

OR must not only be turning in his grave. He must be weeping.