Government must put its money where its mouth is

The Life Esidimeni tragedy represents one of the post-apartheid government’s lowest lows. Former Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke described it as a “pervasive and reeking violation of our constitution” when he awarded the families of the victims each R1.2 million in damages in 2018.

The ominous opening lines of his 92-page ruling read: “This is a harrowing account of the death, torture and disappearance of utterly vulnerable mental health care users in the care of an admittedly delinquent provincial government. It is also a story of the searing and public anguish of the families of the affected mental health care users and of the collective shock and pain of many other caring people in our land and elsewhere in the world.

“These inhuman narratives were rehearsed before me, the arbitrator, in arbitral proceedings I am about to describe.”

As a result of their 2015 transfer from Life Esidimeni – a specialist facility – to NGOs and hospitals across the province that didn’t have the capacity to care for them, 144 mentally ill patients died. Another 1,418 were, as the former chief justice put it, “exposed to trauma and morbidity amongst other results, but survived”. And the whereabouts of yet another 44 were – in 2018 at least – unknown.

“Our constitution hopes for public servants who listen to the genuine and reasonable grievances of citizens and other people within our borders with concern and a readiness to respond to and alleviate their concern and certainly protect and promote the rights the law affords them.

“This did not happen here. The public service motto of ‘Batho Pele’ was ignored,” said Moseneke.

His final award was a far cry from the paltry R200,000 government had proposed during the proceedings and President Cyril Ramaphosa – then deputy – was among those who welcomed it at the time and vowed history would never repeat itself. But fast forward two-and-a-half years and the ghosts of the past continue to haunt the present.

No criminal charges have been instituted against any of those who were implicated – even though Moseneke, while stopping short of directing the police to investigate, did say his office had provided the SA Police Service with the full record of proceedings and that “they must do their work as the law requires of them” – and as recently as this week, there were reports of outstanding payments. It’s yet another example of the system routinely failing the most vulnerable.

As are the recently reported cases of a 16-year-old Mpumalanga girl and a 12-year-old Free State girl who, despite the authorities being well aware of their situations, have still not been removed from homes in which they are being subjected to harrowing abuse and neglect.

And Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga having to be ordered by a court to use state funds allocated for the purpose to feed some nine million needy children around the country after cutting off what is – for many of them – a lifeline, quite literally overnight. And the summary cutting off of funding to old age homes in the Eastern Cape, leaving them unable to pay their lights and water.

But in the case of Life Esidimeni, that the victims of such an appalling government failing are still being treated with the same disregard that led to the disaster – is simply unbelievable. It’s time for government to step up and put its money where its mouth is.

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