Ethical people can save SA from ruin

People who pay tax in this country – whether they have jobs and have money deducted every month by the SA Revenue Service, or whether they contribute to tax collection indirectly through VAT or levies on everything from petrol to booze – would probably agree that they see little value for their financing of our state.

So much money has been looted or wasted over the years that it is impossible to conceive of what might have been had it been spent wisely.

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Yet, in downtown Joburg, there is evidence that the money we grudgingly pay over to the state can actually make a real difference in the lives of people.

The Presidential Employment Stimulus (PES), set up post-Covid to help save jobs and create new ones, has so far distributed R32.6 billion to more than one million people.

That money has also been channelled into the City of Gold, where the Johannesburg Inner City Partnership (JICP) has helped distribute R25 million to 40 organisations.

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That money has been used to create “safe spaces” for people in the inner city to play and learn and it has created about 2 000 part-time jobs since November last year, almost 70% of which have gone to youth in the area and 60% to women, JICP said.

That is real progress. People have been given opportunities. They have been given hope that they can change their lives for the better.

No doubt there are some horror stories within the PES – there have to be, in this country, where more than R30 billion is sloshing around – but the experience in Joburg, as highlighted for us today by the Context media group, shows what can be done when government money is administered by people who have a higher motive than self-enrichment.

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These are the people we need to save our country