By Tshepo Kgadina
I, as I would believe to be a case with millions of other South Africans, am grief stricken to have now come to a lamentable realisation that we, the people of South Africa, have been hoodwinked and robbed by the political misleaders we had entrusted with our vote, as we first did on April 27, 1994 and will possibly continue to naïvely and gullibly do so on May 29.
Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau once wrote that: “The English people believes itself to be free; it is gravely mistaken; it is free only during the election of Members of Parliament; as soon as the members are elected, the people is enslaved; it is nothing.” It is now patently evident; that which Rousseau said of the people of England, has indeed also come pass for the people of South Africa.
Looking back, six years ago, 04/04/2018 to be exact, 49 days since the nation was gripped by the uncanny spirit of “Ramaphoria” and the “Thumamina” fad, I opined as follows:
“This day shall live in infamy as the culmination to the end of the Rule of Law and the Constitutional Scheme in South Africa with the insistence by the Government to signing of 27 more illegal electricity contracts (#REIPPs) with profiteering privateers!!!
Sadly this marks the dreaded return of the demonic ghost of the arms deal with a vengeance!!!
Earlier this week, I had the misfortune of taking a person who was injured to Edenvale Hospital and witnessed the horrific conditions which ordinary citizens of this Republic are subjected to daily.
I helplessly witnessed a mother crying in despair as inexperienced intern doctors were fumbling to treat her daughter who had been stabbed on her way from work. Tragically she died right there and then!
Yet, the government finds nothing wrong with paying R93,150,684.93 per day to the illegal Bid Window 1,2,3 REIPPs which constitute 30% of Eskom’s Primary Energy Costs.
If this was not enough, the government also finds no fault with the discredited and failed policy of deficit financing whereby South Africa is now one of the most indebted nations in the world with a government debt at R2.5 trillion.
Interest costs on government debt are at the staggering figures of R490,410,958.90 per day.
Any reasonable thinking person would therefore rightly ask the questions: If the government did not elect to gift greedy profiteering privateers with R583,561,643.83 per day, what quality of life at the least cost would ordinary South Africans enjoy in terms of healthcare, education, safety and security, housing, water and sanitation, energy (electricity and liquid fuels) and so forth, as would be customary in any modern constitutional democracy?
With such unpalatable facts, there can therefore no longer be any legitimate claim that ours is: a government of the people, by the people, for the people!!!”
At this juncture , in our nation’s recent history, it is very apparent that a forest of discontent and violent protests has sadly but truly taken a firm rooting in this land. This conclusion is premised on the following factors:
South Africa is settled with a president who proudly celebrates that he presides over a state that is burdened with 28 million people on South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) grants and haplessly condemned to having to subsist on less than $1 per day.
Rampant corruption, crime, murder rate, unemployment, poverty, inequality, are all at unprecedented highest levels in recorded history of South Africa since 1994.
The distinct criminal class of inept comprador politicians and greedy profiteering privateers have accelerated their plunder in all entities of state, to the extent it has become acceptable for the so-called renewable energy independent producers can shamelessly steal over R143 million per day, set to balloon to R170m per day in 2025, yet deliver zero usable electricity to consumers who are any case enduring economically devastating rolling blackouts and financially ruinous tariffs. We have a Eskom that loses over R80 billion per year through corrupt so-called IPP contracts, evergreen contracts with coal mining mafia, power stations maintenance contracts, diesel purchases, etc.
Furthermore, as a direct result of the gross misapplication of the fiscal policy of Deficit Financing that I been warning about since 2014, National Treasury now borrows in excess of R1.57bn every calendar day just to pay interest on the more than R4.8 trillion debt owed to the greedy moneylenders who have captured South African Reserve Bank’s monetary policy. It is however not surprising that the inept National Treasury has now conjured up a sinister scheme to loot R150bn from the Gold and Foreign Exchange Contingency Reserve Account (GFECRA).
These are characteristic of a nation suffering from the dreaded combined historical curses of Esau-Nongqawuse-Pol Pot multiplied. It is however a tragedy of immense proportions that not a single Rand of the R150bn from GFECRA will find its way into any meaningful economic activity, but will all be doled out to the greedy money lenders who have enslaved not only this generation of people but even our great grandchildren who are yet to be born.
Now therefore, as South Africans go for yet another so-called democratic elections on 29 May, it would be a clear sign of wisdom, astuteness, discernment and political maturity if they would first ponder the immortal words of Jean-Jacques Rousseau that: "Peoples once accustomed to masters, are not in a condition to do without them. If they attempt to shake off the yoke, they still more estrange themselves from freedom, as, by mistaking for it an unbridled license to which it is diametrically opposed, they nearly always manage, by their revolutions, to hand themselves over to seducers, who only make their chains heavier than before." This is of course if the upcoming elections, which are purposed to be democratically free and fair, are to have the intended practical meaning and application to daily life.
*Kgadima is an Independent Economic and Energy Analyst
**The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of Independent Media or IOL