What happens when you run out of other people’s money? You start to make some really troubling moves to suck even more funds from battered and bruised citizens. Welcome to the government of SA. Its instrument of choice is to increase the taxes of those with money (587,593 + 45% of taxable income above R1,656,600) to basically generate funds to pay for the running of government and its projects. Consider that the ruling party is facing persistent protests from its own comrades for not being able to pay their salaries. How utterly embarrassing. Where did all the money go?
No, wait, your government is not done yet. Its greatest fear is that you go off the grid and use natural sources of energy such as solar panels as your contribution to a green economy. Good citizen? Yes. But now you’re a threat because you’re taking your money normally paid to the public utilities away from these hungry suckers. What is under consideration? Force you to pay tariffs for your environmentally conscious actions.
Sometimes officialdom tells you with a straight face that by going green you are taking away money from those who cannot pay. That’s right. Forget that you already pay taxes at one of the highest tax rates in the world. Thing is, you are the gift that keeps on giving, the last resort when the taps run dry.
It's not like you get anything in return for your extended contribution to the national fiscus. Safety and security is not guaranteed and that is why you rely on private security which you yourself pay for just to stay alive. You long ago went private with your basic postal services since that public service collapsed. And now because of the collapse of the national airline, a less than two-hour roundtrip flight between Johannesburg and Cape Town might cost as much as a European holiday thousands of miles away.
Bless your cotton socks for such generous reasoning but wake up, sucker. This government steals from the poor, not only from you.
And by the way, electricity is not guaranteed while you remain on the grid. In fact, everybody is scratching their heads about this conundrum: while you get less electricity (load-shedding, for example), you are actually paying more for electricity!
But government is not done with you, sucker. Did you notice how the more established public schools got less and less subsidy from government since 1994? Guess where the money now comes from to keep the school functional and to maintain and extend the facilities? From you, with the capacity to pay higher and higher school fees.
In your civic mind you reckon: well, at least the money government would have paid for my relatively privileged school will go to the many disadvantaged schools in the country. Bless your cotton socks for such generous reasoning but wake up, sucker. This government steals from the poor, not only from you. Remember the PPE scandal in Gauteng or the wholesale theft of school nutrition provisions in the Eastern Cape? No, no, no. Money does not flow from rich to the poor — it flows from you to the nouveau riche to subsidise their personal security, blue-light vehicles, generous housing and ample meals. You feed the faces of new middle classes.
To compensate for the collapse of government we have developed the largest philanthropic sector in Africa. We rightly laud organisations like Gift of the Givers but remember this: they are taking over functions that government was supposed to deliver with taxpayers’ money. Things such as boreholes for public hospitals without flowing water or basic medical and dental services in the rural areas. Right, we are thankful for this civic spirit, but where the hell did your tax funds go to?
Then the impossible happened. Instead of burying their heads in shame, senior government officials actually showed up on Mandela Day alongside Imtiaz Sooliman to celebrate the work he was doing in destitute communities. Yiddish friends call this chutzpah. The liberal English scream “bloody cheek”. And Cape Flats dwellers respond: “blerrie skelms”. Even my dog knows when he has done wrong. Not these officials — they are utterly shameless.
Even my little WELCOME! mat was stolen the other day from the front door.
The money is running out fast and the demand for social welfare is increasing against the backdrop of historic levels of unemployment and desperation among the poor. And when the government has done raiding your personal finances, the desperate come for whatever they can get by fair means or foul.
Even my little WELCOME! mat was stolen the other day from the front door. That mat will be sold somewhere for cents, maybe rands, but everything is fair game. We are all sitting ducks.
And when you’ve run out of other people’s money, tell them what they already know as if you actually have resources, let alone the will, to make things happen. Almost three decades from taking power, a senior cabinet minister announced the other day that “we must deal with the issue of overcrowded classrooms”.
You see, when you run out of financial resources you draw on symbolic resources —meaningless words and actions you hope will give you some political capital among the poor. That is why Grahamstown becomes Makhanda or Port Elizabeth is renamed Gqeberha at the height of municipal collapse (for example, no water or basic services). Not because these politicians care a damn about symbolic restitution; they are hoping to buy time from the desperate by giving them symbols rather than a decent job while they devise new ways of shaking you out. Until the poor realise you cannot eat symbols.
Long story short? You’ve been screwed, suckers!
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