‘Eish!’ – When our lack of accountability moves from annoying to scary

Ever waited 45 minutes for a fast-food burger? That was my fun experience that added time to my road trip last week but gave me plenty of time to think about the how emblematic it is.

Not feeling particularly friendly, I was overjoyed that I could order my food from a machine when I made a pitstop on the N1. I put in a particularly basic order and after 15 minutes, I relented and realised I may have to speak to somebody. After all, my order number and come and gone on the screen. After being told that I must just wait, I mentioned my number had been on the screen. That’s when it was explained to me that I must ignore the screen.

I thought that was weird. Why have the screen if you’re supposed to ignore it? As time went on, I lost myself in the same question for various things. Why have checks and balances, public finance management regulations, liquor rules, a whole bloated cabinet, airline, power utility, if you’re not really using them? When I came to, I realised I was 40 minutes in, overcame my hesitance to being Karen and summoned who I believed was the manager. A simple question of “is it normal to wait 40 minutes for a burger” was met with the most South African response ever; “eish”.

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Sure, I can find a new place for my pitstops but spare a thought for the person who invested in upgrading their fast-food joint to include the screen system, supposed to pay their staff and maintain a functional business. “Eish” probably won’t cut it for them when the business goes under and they’re hauled off to the CCMA to back a retrenchment process.

But it’s that business owner’s fault really. What’s the point of throwing money at a system your people can’t use? There’s no shame in acknowledging that some people don’t have the skills to go digital. Why do you think we still do elections on paper?

Why do we keep investing so broadly in higher education when so many of the graduates we have invested in can’t find work to utilise the skills that were paid for? How is it conceivable that we spend billions in healthcare but can’t even place doctors efficiently?

Oh, and a whole NPA, state capture thing and one or two overruns but it’s still too much to ask for a couple of convictions. Results are what we require, not just throwing money at something and pretending like it will work. It’s stupid but moreover, unfair to those expected to perform under such poorly considered investments.

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Yes, it would be lovely if we could make things smart and efficient but you’re dealing with a country that can hardly distribute the dwindling amount of electricity it produces. So, building an app to report fires is great… but what do you do when there’s no electricity to maintain a charge on your phone, data is too expensive and the fire trucks from 1997 have no petrol in them?

Even if we did have the capacity to have the nice things, it’s not like we have a good track record of maintaining them. Go play around on the South African e-Services Portal. Once you’ve overcome the shock from learning we have such a thing, get ready to be shocked by how useless it is.

Maybe we should focus on overcoming our increasing inability to teach our children how to read before we start writing the policies that will affect them.

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Yes, “eish” is an annoying response when you’re waiting 45 minutes for a burger. It’s an alarming response when you wake up, realise that we’ve spent R620 million on schools, clinics and infrastructure but they have yet to be completed. It’s a terrifying response when you realise we’ve paid for a new minister and still have no electricity from them.

It’s a scary response when you come to realise that “eish” is not just a South African response to a problem. It’s the automated get out of accountability jail card. Why do four million children still live below the poverty line? Eish!