Plan to reopen schools ludicrous
The plan, as outlined by the department’s director-general Mathanzima Mweli on Thursday, is impractical.
I suggest only those in matric and students at tertiary institutions should be allowed to continue learning from home, and only return to class later in the year to prepare for exams.
Other grades must forfeit the current academic year.
My maternal grandparents knew their way around pennies, pounds, cents and rands. Pity they didn’t sit their gaggle of grandchildren down to explain the intricacies of money management, tax avoidance, wealth creation and preservation.
It was only in the late 70s that blacks were allowed to contribute towards a pension, which most resisted as that would have meant a deep reduction in their already meagre salaries. The situation didn’t change much when medical aids were introduced. It’s not surprising to see a pensioner with over 30 years’ working experience walking away with a meagre R90 000 pension payout.
From a tough upbringing that excluded home ownership, the two people who produced me were suddenly presented with a “brilliant opportunity” to own a bonded house in the newly created Diepkloof Extension.
No one explained the new world my parents were being thrust into. They duly got a bond from Permanent Bank, which later morphed into Nedbank. They were not encouraged to pay a little extra into the bond to kill the massive interest, especially at the start.
My folks and most of our neighbours resigned themselves to paying off bonds of around R40 000 in the mid80s for two decades or longer, thanks to second bonds for extensions to accommodate the ballooning family.
When cheques were the in-thing, everyone wanted to be seen tearing off a leaf from a thick book and walking away with packets full of goodies. No one explained the big jump from a savings to a cheque account and the hefty interest it entailed. Folks just had to muddle their way through it all. For those who moved out of bustling Soweto for a new life in Spruitview with bigger yards and double-storeyed dwellings, it meant more enslavement to banks.
Personal finance in most households is still taboo. I wished my folks had shown me the till slips and how that impacted the way we had to make the rand stretch for the month. Instead of piling the trolley with lots of vegetables at Blackchain supermarket in Diepkloof, we should have started a vegetable patch.
How I wished they explained that I shouldn’t have spent my initial paychecks on a massive set of wheels and earth-shattering sound system and instead invested in property and shares on the JSE. They should have at least told me to move closer to my place of work and use the saving to accelerate my bond repayments.
Shem, they didn’t know better and I have learned the hard way that credit cards and personal loans are the bullet trains to financial enslavement. What I’m thankful for is that they did tell me that genuine friends are not attracted to you based on material possessions but on account of your mental prowess and generosity of spirit.
• Mafata is a Johannesburg-based communicator and personal finance student