People must stop depending on the state

South Africans’ laziness has led to them being dependent on the state for a living instead of standing up and doing something for themselves.

Our government has spoiled people by rendering free services to them. There is free water to rural areas, free education, free houses, free food in our schools, free transport to schools for learners, free child grants and free old-age pensions. There is almost free everything. There is even a free grant to start a businesses. Some of the successful people in this country did not work to achieve what they have – they just got funding from the state. You see how easy it is to obtain riches this way.

People now want free education at tertiary institutions, which is almost impossible to provide.

If the government had to cut off all the free services that it is rendering to the people, how many homes would fall apart and how many families would starve? How many children are already going to sleep on an empty stomach because their family depends on school feeding schemes? And how many families are going to sleep without a roof over their head because they expect the state to provide housing?

I don’t blame the beneficiaries of free services for their laziness. I blame our government, because unemployed people used to survive by subsistence farming, before the government started introducing all these free services. Now agricultural lands are being laid to waste because people no longer use them, as they know they can get paid for doing nothing. They know that at the end of every month, there is money coming into their bank accounts.

In countries such as Nigeria, people will survive no matter what happens to the state’s finances, because they do not depend on their government for a living. Everyone who has something there worked hard for it. Business people there started their businesses from scratch. Even poor unemployed people survive by farming their own lands. No one sits at home and waits for the government to spoon-feed them.

I suggest that even though our government is rendering these free services, people must try to find something they can do for themselves instead of depending on grants.

By Aaron Damane