The art of effective communication often calls for tact and diplomacy.
Deputy social development minister Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu would, in retrospect, benefit from fine-tuning these skills to get her message across.
Bogopane-Zulu found herself on the receiving end of a stinging public backlash this week after telling beneficiaries of SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) grants not to spend their money on alcohol. She was speaking in Limpopo as part of a countrywide educational drive about the dangers of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD).
The 9-9-9 campaign is an important initiative given that SA was identified by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as having the highest reported prevalence of FASD in the world. The initiative is billed as an opportunity for community members in the nine provinces to exchange views on how to prevent FASD and protect children.
Unfortunately, in this instance, the subject ended up being overshadowed by Bogopane-Zulu’s insinuation that grant recipients blow their cash on booze instead of food.
Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.
— Isaac Newton
“The grants Sassa gives out, that people worked hard for, beneficiaries do not respect them,” she said. Instead of using the money to better their lives, recipients were drinking it away.
Observers, including academics, were quick to point out how several studies had confirmed that women — many sacrificing their own nutritional needs in the process — were using social grants to feed their families. And they continue to do so as millions of people struggle to put food on the table amid the soaring cost of living in SA.
In August the child support grant of R480 was 23% below the food poverty line of R624 in SA and 41% below the average cost to feed a child a basic nutritious diet (R820.26), according to the latest Household Affordability Index, compiled by the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice & Dignity Group.
The national department of health has confirmed that children in impoverished parts of the country are dying from malnutrition.
And so the important conversation, about abstaining from alcohol during pregnancy because of the harm it can do to a child and the need for communities to support expectant mothers, ended up being sidetracked. It became a discussion about a deputy minister, paid to serve the people of SA with empathy and care, coming across as being ill-informed, condescending and anti-poor.
Of course there will be those who abuse social grants, but the vast majority of recipients use them to buy the barest of essentials in an often daily struggle to avert hunger. Surely the behaviour of these few “bad apples” could have been addressed with more tact and diplomacy? Sadly, some of our leaders adopt the wrecking-ball approach to addressing thorny issues without realising the damage their choice of words will unleash. This should not be the case. We need to hold our leaders to higher standards.
A quote by one of the world’s most influential scientists, Isaac Newton, springs to mind: “Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.”
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