A VIEW OF THE WEEK: New dawns of darkness ahead?

Cheers filled the air, tears flowed, and hugs spread like the flu when many matrics finished their last exam this week. In another part of the country, loud wailing, tears of heartbreak, and hugs of condolences as 12 miners died in a tragic mine accident.

It’s a season of new beginnings for over 900 000 matrics, who will be excited and anxious about their future.

They wrote English this week and will do well to remember Alexander Pope’s famous poem:

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace

In simpler words, it warns that if immoral, unethical, or bad behaviour is left it can erode a person’s character, and by extension, a society.

The country and economy that many of these matrics will now be responsible for is one that is physically eroding.

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The lights hardly stay on, key infrastructure is stolen or vandalised, the rail network has all but collapsed, roads are filled with massive potholes, the ports are congested, and a lack of effective policing has left many communities near lawless.

Citizens and businesses have endured and pitied crisis after crisis. But as the primary failures continue to bleed into their lives and productivity, they are leaving.

The brain-drain of skilled professionals moving overseas has been happening for many years but big business that has adapted to keep operations in the country have now raised the alarm anew or started pulling their operations.

This week VW CEO of passenger car operations Thomas Schäfe warned about the future of the company’s operations in South Africa, amid ongoing power blackouts, infrastructure failures, and logistic challenges.

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A few hours later, the world’s second-biggest steel producer ArcelorMittal South Africa announced it was closing operations in Newcastle and Vereeniging. A total of 3 500 jobs are at stake with the closures, with a similar figure estimated if VW decides to pull out.

The tobacco industry has raised similar threats, leading to a gushing of the bleeding wound that is job loses in the country.

Luckily, it seems government is the only one that has embraced the crisis.

Speaking at a post-Cabinet briefing this week, Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni was asked about big businesses’ alarm. She responded that government had never hidden its challenges.

This shrug it off, “told you so” dodge of accountability shows not just a lack of interest and empathy for the people they serve but a loath and disdain.

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Like our matrics, an anxious future also awaits the families of those killed and injured when a cage miners at Impala Platinum Mine in Rustenburg were travelling in was plunged back 200m underground. A total of 86 miners were affected, 12 of them died and 10 were critically injured.

One of the most deadly mining accidents since 1994 got shrugs, condolences and promises of an inquiry by Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe.

As a new dawn rises for those finishing school, the point of no return for state failure could also be on the horizon. We have endured and pitied the chaos for too long, let us not embrace it.

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