ONKGOPOTSE JJ TABANE | Why does government persist in being tone deaf to its citizens' tragedies?

A year ago children died from consuming snacks bought from hawkers and spaza shops in Gauteng. The government officials, as usual, rushed there on some PR exercise and the pretence to care. At the time of this ambulance behaviour there was goodwill from society that the government officials dropped everything to be by the side of the bereaved families.

The politicians arranged the funerals of the dead children and were VIP front-row guests at the funeral, delivering platitudes and promising they would get to the bottom of the tragedy. These platitudes and PR stunts were cold comfort to the families. Worst of all, a year later we still don't know for sure what caused the deaths of these kids, who have now just become a number. How is it that with all the technology at our disposal we still don't know the cause of death of the children?

We seem to have been waiting for more children to die before we see more crocodile tears from a tone-deaf government. Tone deaf at all levels. It's no longer an accident but a trend, and government shows us its true colours.

Last year 35 people died in Hammanskraal, and again the politicians have been happy to conclude that the cause of their death is inconclusive — in other words they don't know months later what killed the innocent citizens who had expected clean water from their government.

The new mayor of Tshwane, like the old one, has no clue what killed the citizens in their city. This is despite a CSIR report declaring years ago that the water in that area was not fit for human consumption. With that report in hand, it should not be too difficult to conclude that these citizens were killed by dirty water and by the corruption of a tone-deaf government that awarded their cronies a tender that was meant to fix the waterworks to benefit the poorest of the poor. There have been little or no consequences.

The only reason they won't admit this straightforward causal link is the fear that the families will demand damages. This is no surprise. This is the same government that went to court to refuse to pay the Life Esidimeni victims until they were forced by the courts to do so, putting on full display their tone-deaf badge of shame.

It's quite frankly a full-on trend. How else do you explain the government that has failed to eradicate pit latrines at schools and has no shame in going to court to refuse to pay damages to the Komape family, whose child drowned in a toilet? They spend our money to defend their incompetence in court.

Despite electoral losses in 2021 and 2024, there seems to be no change in our leaders. Instead, they spend money on ceremonies to repatriate freedom fighters — a good thing whose symbolism falls on deaf ears. Oliver Tambo must be turning in his grave if he is looking down and seeing what the erstwhile liberation movement has become.

What is the reason for this tone-deafness? It's painful to conclude that none of the dead kids or cholera victims are relatives of these leaders. Maybe if some of these citizens were related to some of the shameless elites of our time we would have seen a sense of urgency to answer the questions.

For now, it's a year and counting and still the suffering relatives wait for closure.

Prof JJ Tabane is the anchor of Power to Truth on eNCA and an adjunct Professor of Media Studies at the University of Botswana.