Africa Day ignores one issue

‘Concerned Citizen’ writes:-

I CONFESS that I have not followed all the celebrations of Africa Day in this country, and have no idea if the governments in the rest of Africa made as much of it our government did. What I did hear about the South African celebrations seemed to me to evade the one central issue that will determine the future of Africa.

Population growth.

I did not hear one single politician say anything about population growth. I suppose that this is not surprising under the present circumstances, when our First Citizen, the President, has multiple wives and enough children to field two football teams (with reserves). One cannot promote the idea of smaller families when the President provides the worst example to follow.

But the growth of the population, here and in the rest of Africa, will be the make or break of this country and continent. What is evident even in our little town of Vryheid is mirrored in every town in this country, and probably in the rest of Africa. People are flocking to the urban areas, and the urban areas cannot provide them with jobs.

There are not enough jobs, there are not enough houses, we all know there is not enough electricity, there is not unlimited water. But primarily, there are not enough jobs.

And one of the consequences of the flood of people to the urban areas is that the urban environment does not allow them the land to create sustaining gardens, so food immediately becomes a problem. There’s not enough of that either.

Vryheid will never, never, suddenly get the sort of investment that will create the thousands of jobs that we need to make a significant dent in the unemployed. That just is not going to happen, and if a politician says it will, they are deluded. They are lying to you. There are young people leaving school every year who cannot realistically expect to ever have a job, a proper sustaining job, with which to build a career.

There are simply too many people. A recent manifestation of this are the thousands of Africans who are desperately fleeing from Africa, risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean Sea to get to southern Europe. If risking your life at sea is better than staying in your native country, then your native country must be dreadful.

The politicians can talk all they like about the development of Africa, South Africa, KwaZulu Natal and Vryheid, they can make all sorts of statements about job creation and creating an investor-friendly environment, but it is not going to happen.

Can you honestly see any big job-creating enterprise coming to Vryheid rather than going to Richards Bay or Gauteng? Indeed, why come to South Africa when you can get your products made cheaper and quicker in the Far East and India.

We have to bring our population growth under control to allow our country’s resources to catch up. Families should be limited to two children only. We have to do it, and we have to have politicians who have the foresight to promote this as an urgent policy.

It’s a pity, because South Africa and Africa, with their numerous resounces, have such huge potential, but we have to manage poverty and unemployment before that potential can be exploited. We’ll never do that with too many people.