Hold on to that job, lucky one

The economy is going through a lot at the moment: technical recession, quarter-to-junk status, regressing economic strength and the constant need for the population to borrow from Peter to pay Paul to survive.

If that is not enough, every second company is retrenching. There are men and women who leave their homes every morning, unsure if they are to return home with pink slips, operational reasons cited as the push factor.

The rate at which the country is experiencing retrenchments is alarming.

We are a nation in crisis. While government continues to promise to create millions of jobs in a said number of years, government does not create jobs – business does. We have unemployment rising and a population and economy on its knees.

The ANC screams, together we can do more, let’s do it for the Mandela/Sisulu legacy – then they silently turn around and sell the country, if not to the shebeen owners in Saxonworld, to the Watsons.

The country is under siege from those we have put into power. They sold us a dream, we bought the dream and were left with the ruins in the form of a failing economy, an arrogance of ill-gotten gains and a Cabinet that answers to not a single figure of judicial authority.

I am concerned with the morality of the entire situation… be it a Gupta, Rupert or a Zuma, be it white privilege or black entitlement, the gap between the have and the have nots are widening.

The rich are getting richer building family legacies that are unbelievable to the layman, which opposition parties are quick to remind us is from tax contributions and state-owned enterprises.

The SA Social Security Agency is seen as a lifeline for many with child support grants, pension funds and disability grants. These are used to put food on the table and help families survive from one day to the next.

For the lucky one, those who do not have an immediate threat of job loss – may we continue to put more effort into our output – there are millions who would trade places with us in a heartbeat.

Kekeletso Nakeli-Dhliwayo.

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