PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday expressed concern at the alleged theft of food parcels meant to assist distressed families and individuals during the Covid-19 nationwide lockdown.
“A number of provinces have received reports that callous individuals, some of them allegedly government officials, are hoarding or selling food parcels earmarked for the needy and destitute, or diverting them to their friends and families,” said the president in his weekly newsletter.
In the letter, the President vowed to deal with individuals harshly, should the allegations prove to be true.
Like many other countries around the world, South Africa has imposed the lockdown with a hope to save lives from the life-threatening Covid-19 that has killed 54 people in the country.
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“We have done the same in our country, but our lockdown has revealed a very sad fault line in our society that reveals how grinding poverty, inequality and unemployment is tearing the fabric of our communities apart,” he said.
The President has been moved by images of people desperate for food parcels at distribution centres and of community protests against food shortages.
“There can be no greater anguish than that of a parent whose children cry out to them for food, but they have none to give. There can be no greater injustice than a society where some live in comfort and plenty, while others struggle at the margins to survive with little or nothing at all.”
While he has attributed this to the “residual effects of a fractured and unequal past”, he also said they are also a symptom of a fundamental failure in post-apartheid society.
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“The nationwide lockdown, in response to the coronaviru,s has gravely exacerbated a long-standing problem.”
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