South Africans need to embrace the fact that government is completely useless

Congratulations! You’ve made it through another tough year.

In December, our timelines tend to be flooded with reviews of things that happened over the last year and it gets pretty depressing persistently being reminded that another 12 months have waned away and the goals you had set for January 2013 still haven’t been met.

When high school history teachers try to justify their discipline, the inevitable argument always boils down to something about not repeating the mistakes of the past. There’s just a significant issue with that – humans never seem to place emphasis on applying the knowledge they’ve acquired to anything.

Yeah, I spent grade 4 learning about the Boer War, but then spent grades 5 and 6 learning about the world wars and while in grade 7, we dealt with the Gulf War, the war against terror was just unfolding in real time. So it’s not like learning about war has stopped any from happening.

Also Read: Curfew can go, but masks should stay

Similarly, in this time of lockdown pandemic what what, we were reminded of all the things we had known to be true before. The government sucks, the private sector loves making money, and if you’re forced to stay indoors with your spouse too long, divorce will ensue.

There’s not much I can offer in the way of the latter, but what’s taking so long about applying the lessons from the rest?

The private sector is dominating South Africa in so many respects, and the government loves it because they hardly have to do any work. It’s crazy to think that we have such impressive private security patrolling our hoods (if you have high DSTV privilege levels) because the cops (who we also pay for) tend to be unreliable at stopping crime.

The potholes in the roads are now being filled by construction companies, and tourism is being promoted hard by private conglomerates and hotel consortiums. Why? Because those who are invested do a better job of protecting their interests than those who are not.

Gift of the Givers is an amazing organisation, but you would expect a combination of our police and international departments to be able to handle their work. Expect away, but since they can’t, thank goodness for Gift of the Givers, just another example of how private entities are being awesome at the work we should expect from the state.

Obviously, this isn’t ideal as it basically comes down to being taxed for work that doesn’t get done and then having to pay better people to do it. While it may not be ideal, it does seem to be effective.

Holidaying in uMhlanga, you see how awesome the boardwalk and promenade are and so much of that seems to be done privately. Go down south and you see the struggle to maintain public spaces.

So maybe it’s time to embrace this. Maybe we can start using the private sector to enforce a more effective state, and government can sit by passively like the “hard working” farmer who merely orders their staff around. I mean, the vaccination drive was largely aided by the private sector, which is also administering proportionally more and more COVID tests that the state.

Let’s finally learn from this and start simply in 2022. Small changes can lead to big differences. Something that’s come up recently is just how many people are driving around with illegible or no number plates and frankly, the cops have better things to do than enforce that, so it keeps getting worse.

However, many people love the convenience of drive thru eateries. Aha! Possible solution. Ban and fine private sector drive thru’s from serving customers with no number plates.

Perhaps you think it’s silly since one could merely park and go. Maybe. But now that we have no curfew, you’ll soon realise just how much you want that McFlurry at 3am after a binge, and if something as simple as a number plate prevents that, perhaps you’ll be more inclined to remedy your cheat.

It’s time to get into the habit of using a more efficient private sector to do the work ordered by a more “conscientious” state.

Here’s to an amazing 2022 to you, your friends, colleagues and family! Thanks for a year of engaging with my writings and I look forward to saving South Africa from the comfort of my couch with you again next year!