South Africa is a complex society faced with complex challenges. Among them our biggest wound, unemployment.
In my mind the economy appears lop sided, limping along, trying hard to fix this wound and only managing to pacify the pain. Temporarily.
Enter the social grant system. I remain undecided about its efficacy and whether there is indefinite room for it.
One of our staff told me of a woman who was waiting for her child’s grant money so she could fix her hair.
Last week there was a story on the news about a woman who had abandoned her children and yet continued to chow their money while her 19 year old daughter fended for her three siblings.
While these stories may only make a very small minority of families who depend on the social grant for their existence they do raise questions.
A while ago Wife Swap had an episode where a family living on the dole swapped wives with a hard working farming family.
The farmer who got up every single morning before the sun was up made about the same amount of money a month this non working family received from the government.
Nothing is free – there is always someone footing the bill.
For me it is not about my hard earned money going into tax from which these social grants are funded (I believe very strongly that we as humans are responsible for one another) it's about whether we're fostering pride in people that comes from being self sustaining.
The reason I believe it is far better to give than to receive is because if you're giving it means you're at the higher end of the chart.
However there is no shame in receiving - but it must only be for a while.
My family fell on some really hard times and I am so grateful for people who gave us shelter, food and sometimes even money until we got back on our feet.
There must be a defined period for which a person is on the receiving end because always having a hand out erodes something in one's soul.
The unemployment issue in this country cannot be ignored. It is real and it exists.
Perhaps also the access to market for entrepreneurs is still a road under construction.
In the same breath I do wonder whether or not social grants keep the poor poor and thus a continuous drain on resources that could otherwise be used for more productive ways to develop our country.
If this be the case then perhaps social grants should come with a strategy with each disbursement that will end up with self sustenance for the recipient and thus a deadline for how long the grant will be given.
My hope for South Africa, Zambia and the rest of the African continent is to see an end to poverty driven by our innovation and us realizing our potential as a people.
I doubt that will come from us always being on the receiving end of the economy.
At the moment all I’ve said is opinion but I do prefer having an informed decision which is what moneymula.com is about.
So I’m on the search for information that will help me come to a conclusion I can be confident in and thus work towards.
In the meantime do read Baz’ blog. It’s hilarious and may echo sentiments some of you may have.
Keep in mind he is talking about the UK and not South Africa.
Happy reading.
Dole money entitlement
...I feel quite strongly about the unemployment issue. Fair enough, if somebody is GENUINELY seeking work and wants a job, but are struggling to find one, I sympathise. Naturally, I’m not against people with genuine illness or mental illness either. For the rest…. they need to be made to work for their "free" money. To read more go to http://www.ukcentral.co.uk/rants/opinions/dole-money-entitlement.html
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Dear Ms Moyo on your book Dead Aid...
Dear Ms Moyo,
I do hope you read this mail and I hope very much that you, and not your staff, will respond to it.
I am on page 54 of Dead Aid and for over two months have been unable to read on. The rage in me is suffocating.
I have not yet read what your thoughts are on how the issues in African can be solved however after what I have read so far and having lived on this continent pretty much all my life I am loathe to say that
change is happening far too slow and my concern is that perhaps Africa will never change.
And this Ms Moyo I am ashamed to say has raised a hatred for our continent I have never been able to admit to until now.
We’re a joke the rest of the planet cannot get over. Africans and their inability. My fear is that even we, the people of this continent, believe that.
I conversed with a man the other day and bemoaned the state of our roads – and black as he was he said “Well that’s what happens when you put a black man in office!”
So Ms Moyo while I have become perhaps one of your biggest fans - for I cannot stop talking about you – I wonder whether change will come from policy makers and our governors or whether it will, again as it has in the past, come from us the people?
I think of my children and my fear is I don’t know what to tell them about pride in who they are when they see their own govern and act in such deplorable ways.
So often I’m told that the democracies we now covet took centuries to establish. We do not have centuries Ms Moyo – our children are lost now.
I believe very strongly that it is the people who create the system that should govern them and then hold their governments to the principles of that system.
I don’t mean to sound weak but I think you may share this sentiment –how does a hungry man fight for a system when all he can think of is the next meal for his family? How can a woman demand justice, such as is the case for the women who are continuously raped in the DRC and elsewhere, when all she can think of is how she will survive the very moment she is living in?
I cannot believe, in fact refuse to believe, that this world does not have what is needed to protect this women. For me Ms Moyo, my sentiment is that no outside help is coming for Africa. We have to do this ourselves. I feel the world is too busy laughing at us to take as seriously – we have taught them that.
I hear of al these shifts that appear to elevate our beggary status – but I see the people of this continent every day – those changes are not reaching them.
So I want to say to all those policy makers, in places like Davos who want a pat on the back for doing so much good for Africa, that they should just wait a while on the applause – I was in Zambia just a few months ago and I can attest to the fact that change has not reached the townships of Lusaka – children are dying of malaria as their mothers wait in queues to be attended to – in places like Mansa malnutrition has built a home – no Ms Moyo, they should not applaud just yet – the rot here has not even begun to clear up just yet.
I read an African.com interview with Mr. Shantayanan Devarajan, of the World Bank’s Africa region.
And when asked for his thoughts on your book, he is reported to have responded: “She’s asking if aid has helped or hurt Africa and says aid should be replaced with private capital flows (PCF). Though I sympathize with her, the book’s publishing was imperfectly timed, right before PCFs dwindled. PCF is preferable to aid, but it isn’t available. Less aid may be needed, but African governments also lose revenue by not charging full price for utilities. For example, some governments subsidize electricity but if the government can’t pay the subsidies, electricity cutoffs occur.”
As learned as Mr. Devarajan may be his attitude annoyed me. Your book came at a perfect time in fact I wish it had come decades ago. And yet I do believe that things happen as they should.
I was born in Zambia and have lived in South Africa for the past 19 years. There are times I wished I could go back home but the economics are such a dreadful deterrent I’m ashamed to speak of them to the South Africans who consider people like me a bane on their existence.
While I do not see your book and the adoption of your thinking as Africa’s only savior – my hope is that African people will adopt it as a life-jacket. I hope more Africans will come up with solutions. I fear these solutions will hardly come from our so called leaders. For it appears to me, even from what I’ve read from your book so far, that the status quo suits our leaders perfectly.
I am not as hopeful as you may be or the many people that keep on chanting that it’s Africa’s time to shine. We are sinking in a cesspool of madness, greed and disorganization.
The African child has so little to look up to and is raised in an environment that tells them that they cannot be great – and it is not their fault – they are African who can blame their inability?
I say this because living on this continent this is my observation.
I was living in Europe when Ms Maathai was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. I tell you after reading of her achievement I felt ten feet taller.
I feel the same about your achievements and yet your book presents to me a hopelessness that I cannot shake.
But of course it is unfair of me to say this until I have read your book completely.
I thought to share these thoughts because they have been nagging at me and I thought to speak to you about them.
I do hope you read this mail and I hope very much that you, and not your staff, will respond to it.
I am on page 54 of Dead Aid and for over two months have been unable to read on. The rage in me is suffocating.
I have not yet read what your thoughts are on how the issues in African can be solved however after what I have read so far and having lived on this continent pretty much all my life I am loathe to say that
change is happening far too slow and my concern is that perhaps Africa will never change.
And this Ms Moyo I am ashamed to say has raised a hatred for our continent I have never been able to admit to until now.
We’re a joke the rest of the planet cannot get over. Africans and their inability. My fear is that even we, the people of this continent, believe that.
I conversed with a man the other day and bemoaned the state of our roads – and black as he was he said “Well that’s what happens when you put a black man in office!”
So Ms Moyo while I have become perhaps one of your biggest fans - for I cannot stop talking about you – I wonder whether change will come from policy makers and our governors or whether it will, again as it has in the past, come from us the people?
I think of my children and my fear is I don’t know what to tell them about pride in who they are when they see their own govern and act in such deplorable ways.
So often I’m told that the democracies we now covet took centuries to establish. We do not have centuries Ms Moyo – our children are lost now.
I believe very strongly that it is the people who create the system that should govern them and then hold their governments to the principles of that system.
I don’t mean to sound weak but I think you may share this sentiment –how does a hungry man fight for a system when all he can think of is the next meal for his family? How can a woman demand justice, such as is the case for the women who are continuously raped in the DRC and elsewhere, when all she can think of is how she will survive the very moment she is living in?
I cannot believe, in fact refuse to believe, that this world does not have what is needed to protect this women. For me Ms Moyo, my sentiment is that no outside help is coming for Africa. We have to do this ourselves. I feel the world is too busy laughing at us to take as seriously – we have taught them that.
I hear of al these shifts that appear to elevate our beggary status – but I see the people of this continent every day – those changes are not reaching them.
So I want to say to all those policy makers, in places like Davos who want a pat on the back for doing so much good for Africa, that they should just wait a while on the applause – I was in Zambia just a few months ago and I can attest to the fact that change has not reached the townships of Lusaka – children are dying of malaria as their mothers wait in queues to be attended to – in places like Mansa malnutrition has built a home – no Ms Moyo, they should not applaud just yet – the rot here has not even begun to clear up just yet.
I read an African.com interview with Mr. Shantayanan Devarajan, of the World Bank’s Africa region.
And when asked for his thoughts on your book, he is reported to have responded: “She’s asking if aid has helped or hurt Africa and says aid should be replaced with private capital flows (PCF). Though I sympathize with her, the book’s publishing was imperfectly timed, right before PCFs dwindled. PCF is preferable to aid, but it isn’t available. Less aid may be needed, but African governments also lose revenue by not charging full price for utilities. For example, some governments subsidize electricity but if the government can’t pay the subsidies, electricity cutoffs occur.”
As learned as Mr. Devarajan may be his attitude annoyed me. Your book came at a perfect time in fact I wish it had come decades ago. And yet I do believe that things happen as they should.
I was born in Zambia and have lived in South Africa for the past 19 years. There are times I wished I could go back home but the economics are such a dreadful deterrent I’m ashamed to speak of them to the South Africans who consider people like me a bane on their existence.
While I do not see your book and the adoption of your thinking as Africa’s only savior – my hope is that African people will adopt it as a life-jacket. I hope more Africans will come up with solutions. I fear these solutions will hardly come from our so called leaders. For it appears to me, even from what I’ve read from your book so far, that the status quo suits our leaders perfectly.
I am not as hopeful as you may be or the many people that keep on chanting that it’s Africa’s time to shine. We are sinking in a cesspool of madness, greed and disorganization.
The African child has so little to look up to and is raised in an environment that tells them that they cannot be great – and it is not their fault – they are African who can blame their inability?
I say this because living on this continent this is my observation.
I was living in Europe when Ms Maathai was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. I tell you after reading of her achievement I felt ten feet taller.
I feel the same about your achievements and yet your book presents to me a hopelessness that I cannot shake.
But of course it is unfair of me to say this until I have read your book completely.
I thought to share these thoughts because they have been nagging at me and I thought to speak to you about them.
Power sharing governments in Africa... what a joke
Dare I say that if I were Laurent Gbagbo truly I would be ashamed - but not a smidgen of shame on his face as he marched up the red carpet in his self-declared victory parade to inaugurate himself leader once again - how shameful!
If Cote d’Ivoire ends up with a power sharing government I think I'll have to do much to stop from hurling my entire insides out.
Power sharing governments do not work and it makes me ill that so much is given to despots the majority of people they once led do not want anymore.
I see power sharing governments as a way to pacify tantrums like one would pacify a child by offering them candy.
Only in the case of governance the candy are the people of a country who go out to vote and their votes are insulted by making the loser a winner.
Anyway for those that think power sharing government are a way forward - I do welcome your thoughts.
I think they are a MASSIVE joke and a huge impediment to progress.
If Cote d’Ivoire ends up with a power sharing government I think I'll have to do much to stop from hurling my entire insides out.
Power sharing governments do not work and it makes me ill that so much is given to despots the majority of people they once led do not want anymore.
I see power sharing governments as a way to pacify tantrums like one would pacify a child by offering them candy.
Only in the case of governance the candy are the people of a country who go out to vote and their votes are insulted by making the loser a winner.
Anyway for those that think power sharing government are a way forward - I do welcome your thoughts.
I think they are a MASSIVE joke and a huge impediment to progress.
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