Ramaphosa’s ministers are trapped in an imaginary world

Covid-19 is orchestrated to the score that “the world will never be the same again”. Yes and no.

Right now humanity sits dazed amid imminent economic ruination and social unravelling. Yet, we forget that there’s historically been an almost limitless capacity for human ingenuity to find solutions.

Governments worldwide are pouring billions into recovery efforts and the rebound is likely to be faster than we fear. Yes, the economic costs may rival the ’30s Great Depression. But in terms of deaths and social destruction, this is not as scary as the 1918-20 Spanish Flu.

So, globally, the effect may not be as bad as is predicted. Locally, it may be a different matter.

Even if the optimists turn out to be correct and Covid-19 deaths end up proportionately lower here than overseas, we’re unlikely to avoid major economic and societal dislocation by piggybacking on international relief efforts. And we’ve long squandered our fiscal resources.

To start with, there’s just not much spring left in our economic elastic.

Part of it is that of addressing government corruption and mismanagement that has taken place. Theoretically, this could be remedied relatively quickly. But another part is structural and that’s not susceptible to quick solutions. There has been a steady national impoverishment with formal sector jobs being lost.

Take the textile industry. A dozen years ago it employed more than 200,000 people but has been steadily shrinking. We now have only 80,000 wage-earning textile workers, compared to 90,000 subsistence-level “waste pickers” scouring dumps for recyclable materials.

So, more people in SA now earn a living picking up scraps of cloth than those weaving it.

Part of the blame lies with the dumping practices of China. More of the blame lies with the suicidal insistence of Cosatu union leaders and SACP ideologues on a “living wage” too high for small companies to survive.

A positive aspect to disaster is that it usually upends conventional thinking. That has not happened here, so far.

The small business development minister wants to allot support to failing SMMEs according to a geographic and demographic formula. In other words, not according to how badly it is needed, but according to provincial and racial quotas.

The rescue grants for small tourism businesses will only go to those that meet empowerment criteria. Financial aid to spaza shops will not go to those owned by foreign nationals. The department of agriculture will provide assistance only to black, coloured and Indian farmers.

The constitutionality of these ministerial decisions does not seem to perturb President Cyril Ramaphosa. To the ANC, this is a heaven-sent opportunity to reshape the economic landscape to racial proportions.

But the majority of the population will not be unscathed. The national department of human settlements plans to “decongest” dense informal settlements to reduce infection rates. This raises the spectre of moving tens of thousands.

It’s admittedly inconceivable that this will happen. There would be blood in the streets.

Nevertheless, that so many surreal fever-dreams survive to see Ramaphosa’s “new dawn”, is instructive. It is an indication that many of his ministers are trapped in an imaginary world, dreaming an impossible dream. For the rest of us, it’s all a nightmare.

William Saunderson-Meyer.

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