South Africa will need "good leadership" that seizes the Coronavirus pandemic as an opportunity to address the country's severe inequality crisis in order for the nation to emerge as a healthier society, according to independent political commentator Kim Heller.
Heller argues that good leadership during the coronavirus pandemic will result in an emergence of healed societies around the world, but "this is not the case in South Africa."
She explains: "The coronavirus didn't introduce a crisis into South Africa. All it did was introduced a crisis upon a crisis within South Africa because South Africa has been weakened and in a terrible state under the pandemic of inequality and structural poverty for so long." Heller said that Government could use the pandemic as a means of bettering people's lives. What it needs to do, said Heller, is to realign its budget towards needy areas. "By using this opportunity to realign government resources towards the needy areas, we could actually emerge as a healthier society." South Africa is said to be the most unequal society on the planet, with vast gaps between the country's rich and poor. According to some estimates, just 10% of the population owns up to 90% of the country's wealth. Frustration has mounted in recent years over the lack of economic transformation, as Apartheid-inspired inequality persists through the years of democracy. Heller said: "I would've said that the time to do it was 26 years ago when the ANC government came into play but there were lots of things that they negotiated incorrectly." "We got a soft shift. We got political transformation, not economic transformation. The condition of Black people hardly changed." Heller said that the issue of inequality and poverty will soon "explode" if they are not dealt with soon enough. "Now that we have a crisis that is putting further pressure on the pandemics of poverty and inequality, we are going to create a huge risk to our society. It's going to explode if we don't deal with it now." "When the ANC negotiated, they came up with a settlement which benefited Whites. Political freedom came but it has meant very little because the economic conditions of most people have not changed." "It should've been dealt with almost three decades ago and if we don't deal with it now, we must take responsibility. We are, once again, turning a blind eye to the real ills in our society which transcend well beyond the coronavirus." Listen to the full discussion here:
Kim Heller is an independent political commentator. You can read her blog on https://theuncapturedtruth.wordpress.com/tag/south-africa/
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AuthorZahid Jadwat is a South African writer, columnist, podcaster and radio show host. Archives
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