(Debate in NCOP: Accelerating the provision of social services, safety and the advancement of economic reforms for economic recovery)
The ANC government is under the illusion that it is a great achievement to have millions of South Africans dependent on social grants provided by the state. It is shocking that the ANC fails to realise it is not an achievement, but irrefutable proof of its failure as government.
Government is boasting that the number of social grants has skyrocketed over the past 25 years. The reality is that South Africa’s social service system is one of the world’s most expensive for taxpayers to sustain. South Africa has about 18 million full-time beneficiaries, while approximately 10 million persons are receiving a temporary emergency relief grant.
So, nearly 47% of the country’s population depend on charity, in the form of a grant, for survival because there are no jobs. And the ANC thinks it is an achievement.
A mere 770 companies pay more than 60% of all the corporate income tax and of the more than 60 million people in South Africa, only 7,4 million pay personal income tax. And that is supposed to sustain 28 million unemployed citizens. It is not sustainable and yet the ANC boats about it.
The ANC’s ideological pursuit of a communist dispensation and the drive to transform the economy at all costs have turned South Africa into a welfare state.
A study conducted by the Cambridge National Bureau for Economic Research found that South Africa’s unemployed rate was between 13 and 15% in 1994. At present, it is more than 40%; an increase of about 200%. That is despite the billions of rand spent on employment initiatives, Black Economic Empowerment and Affirmative Action.
Still, government keeps playing the race card when it comes to the economy. The blame for everything that goes wrong is placed on the shoulders of a handful of white people, while it is becoming increasingly clear that white people are rapidly falling behind the black population in terms of wealth. Data from the firm New World Wealth indicate that white millionaires in the country decreased with 42% from 2007 to 2015, while the number of millionaires with a previously disadvantaged background grew with an astounding 179%.
As far as the safety of citizens is concerned, the following figures released by the police paint a disturbing picture of the actual extent of crime in the country: On average, around 60 vehicles are hijacked daily, 75 people are murdered and one woman is raped every 36 seconds. Only 8,6% of the accused in rape cases are successfully sentenced. Interpol justifiably refers to South Africa as the world’s rape capital.
There is a direct correlation between such high levels of crime, poverty and challenging socio-economic conditions. Still, government spends more than R3,3 billion per year on VIP protection to keep the ministers who are running this country into the ground safe.
South Africa can no longer afford the destruction sown by the ANC government. In 2024 the polls should, therefore, usher in a new and better era for the country, without the ANC.
