Where will we be this time next year?

ON Friday morning, under a big blue autumn sky, children walked to school, meeting up with friends along the way. Some stores were opening early, and two long shelves of flowers adorned the pavement. Households were putting out rubbish for the weekly collection. Just a Friday like last week, and the week before, and the week before that. Except it wasn’t. Just a few weeks after the social grants crisis — which had the country heading for the precipice as about 11 million people faced the prospect of no grants this weekend — was narrowly averted by the Constitutional Court, South Africa lurched straight into another one.

The recall on Monday of finance minister Pravin Gordhan from an overseas trip aimed at soothing international investors set in motion a week of high drama culminating in Gordhan and his deputy, Mcebisi Jonas, being fired.

In the same week, the passing of Ahmed Kathrada — a veteran of the struggle against apartheid who throughout his life was dedicated to serving this country — underlined just how far South Africa has veered off course from the heady days of 1994, when there was so much promise.

I have asked myself all week: How did we get here? Each crisis has weakened the country, heightened anxiety, fuelled negativity and diverted the attention of those who should be working for us.

As the ruling party was locked in a power struggle this week, and now with the fallout from the cabinet reshuffle, it is clear not much business of the state was getting done. And it won’t be done next week either, or the week after that.

As the battle among their political principals intensified, directorsgeneral of government departments and their staff would have been paralysed. Now many department heads will be replaced, as new ministers appoint their own staff.

So who, then, is doing the work of the government? Not the big brightlights stuff — speeches and ribboncutting. I mean the humdrum but critical work, like providing the best healthcare for the sick and elderly or making sure children get the best education from well-trained teachers. Because each great teacher means another 40, 50 or 100 kids are inspired. Compound that and you are talking about a generation.

That is what a country that does not perpetually stumble from one disaster to another achieves.

If businesses don’t know what will happen next, how do they invest, employ, expand and innovate?

When citizens know their kids are getting the best schooling, that they can rely on the police to protect them, can turn to health services to meet their needs and that their jobs are secure, they can get on with bigger thinking, making and creating.

Imagine looking back now and saying: Look what we’ve achieved.

Instead, a ratings downgrade is widely expected, which will result in the cost of government debt rising. This means it will have less to spend on building schools; employing more teachers, doctors and nurses; and funding students.

A weaker rand will fuel inflation, pushing up the prices of basic items.

I have asked myself all week: How did we get here?

Interest rates will rise, and the cost of citizens servicing their debt — mortgages, car finance, credit cards, store accounts — will mean less money for food, school fees, clothes, everything.

Those who are already struggling will hurt the most.

In a year’s time, on an autumn day at the end of March next year, will social grants — which already provide only the barest of safety nets — have been paid? And if they have, what will the recipients be able to buy if the cost of food and transport has rocketed?

Will the ranks of the many who are already hungry swell — like the men who each week collect waste from rubbish bins standing on suburban pavements?

And will we wonder again: How did we get here?

Enslin-Payne is deputy editor of Business Times