Starving pensioners SA’s biggest scandal
20 September 2023
Is Ubuntu a lie – a palliative – to lull our people into believing that anyone gives a damn about pensioners who are starving because their pensions remain unpaid? It is all blamed on a “technical glitch.”
Has President Ramaphosa taken action? Has he called the ministers in and demanded an explanation and immediate, emergency action? Has the useless Minister of Social Development, Lindiwe Zulu, called her Director General in and demanded his resignation, or else a solution to the crisis? While she was swanning around at the funeral of Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi and making love to the IFP, the pensioners for whom she is responsible were unpaid and some were starving. She has official residences in Tshwane and Cape Town, fleets of servants and bodyguards paid for by us, and luxury cars in both cities, She is cocooned in luxury and does not care about the pensioners and social grants receivers. Lindiwe Zulu has forgotten what it is like to be poor and starving.
Mondli Gungubele, minister of Communications, is heavily involved in the crisis because ultimately, he is the responsible political head of Postbank and the Post Office. He ought to resign. He fired the whole board of directors of Postbank (touted as South Africa’s possible new state bank!) after they resigned en masse because of his treatment of them. There are legal and technical fights going on but it seems that the inadequately tested new payment system – required to make 20 million payments -- was tested on only 1000 accounts. The agreement with the new service providers was “rushed. It was inadequate to deal with the large volumes. It duly crashed on grant day, 5 September. There are many excuses, but the fact is that many pensioners, living on the breadline, have not been paid. Some, many with grandchildren, say they are starving.
Did the president call an urgent Cabinet meeting to discuss, deal with, and solve the crisis? He appears not to have done so. How does he – and members of his cabinet – sleep at night when some of our old people, totally dependent on social grants, have to go to bed hungry? Has the president apologised to the pensioners who have not been paid? I have not heard it. Like other members of the ruling hierarchy, he was delivering a eulogy at the funeral of Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi because the ANC fears losing power in 2024. He suggested that reconciliation between the ANC and the IFP is urgently necessary. This after more than 40 years of stand-off. This is because he is looking for a coalition to keep the ANC in power.
When he was not doing that, he was hosting an international conference in Sandton and trying to emphasise our importance in world politics.
Our president seems not to understand that the purpose of elections is to provide a government that is competent to run the country. While not perfect, that government can surely not be satisfied with presiding over what is rapidly approaching a failing state. Nothing works. Whatever the ANC touches, ends in incompetence and failure. Perhaps our billionaire president, by courtesy of all the directorships and shares given to him because of his ANC clout, is satisfied that as long as he and his comrades enjoy the fruits of office, he has done his stuff for South Africa.
He and they might find that the starving pensioners and the rest of us who care don’t vote for him or his party in 2024.
Douglas Gibson is a former opposition chief whip and former ambassador to Thailand.
This article first appeared in The Star newspaper.
