LISTEN | Madonsela’s ‘we warned you’ message on Covid-19 restrictions

Social justice activist and former public protector Thuli Madonsela says decisions that hurt the poor were implemented despite clear early signals of their likely impact during the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown.

Speaking at a colloquium marking 30 years of the constitution in parliament on Friday, Madonsela said her social justice team at Stellenbosch University had cautioned as early as April 2020 that Covid-19 restrictions would devastate township and rural economies.

“Everything we predicted happened,” she said, adding that similar modelling had been done on proposed tax measures, including VAT and fuel levy increases, which they warned would worsen unemployment and deepen inequality.

Madonsela said the problem was not simply corruption or a lack of political will, but weak statecraft and a failure to rigorously test policy decisions against their long-term consequences.

“I’m not one of those who says our problem is corruption.

“I think we’re too scared of international institutions … and whatever they say, we don’t check it out,” she said.

She argued that the government must adopt tools to simulate the future impact of its decisions, pointing to a “social justice impact assessment matrix” developed to forecast how policies would affect jobs, inequality and vulnerable communities.

Her remarks come amid persistent economic strain, with unemployment still disproportionately affecting black South Africans and wealth remaining highly concentrated.

Madonsela also addressed tensions around immigration, acknowledging pressures on jobs and public services while warning against vigilantism and calling for stronger enforcement of the law.

Her message, however, was forward-looking, suggesting that policymakers must move beyond short-term fixes and ask what today’s decisions will mean for South Africa in decades to come.

“Don’t look at the fact that it will solve unemployment today,” she said. “It might be a Trojan horse.”

TimesLIVE