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By Kekeletso Nakeli

Columnist


Unemployment rise: We are a country under siege from those we have put into power

They sold us a dream, we bought it, and we are left with the ruins of a nightmare of a failing economy.


The SA economy is going through a technical recession, forcing the population to borrow from Peter to pay Paul to survive. If that was not enough, every second company is retrenching. There are men and women who leave their homes every morning, unsure if they are to return home with pink slips. The rate at which the country is experiencing retrenchments is alarming. We are a nation in crisis. While the government continues to promise to create millions of jobs in a said number of years, it doesn’t – business does, otherwise we will have a continued rise in unemployment…

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The SA economy is going through a technical recession, forcing the population to borrow from Peter to pay Paul to survive.

If that was not enough, every second company is retrenching. There are men and women who leave their homes every morning, unsure if they are to return home with pink slips.

The rate at which the country is experiencing retrenchments is alarming. We are a nation in crisis.

While the government continues to promise to create millions of jobs in a said number of years, it doesn’t – business does, otherwise we will have a continued rise in unemployment and a population and an economy on its knees.

The ANC screams: together we can do more, let’s do it for the Mandela/Sisulu legacy. Then they silently turn around and sell out the country.

We are a country under siege from those we have put into power.

They sold us a dream, we bought the dream and were left with the ruins of a nightmare of a failing economy, an arrogance of ill-gotten gains and a Cabinet that answers to not a single figure of judicial authority.

I, for one, I’m not too concerned with the why, as much as I am with the morality of the entire situation… be it a Gupta, Rupert, or a Zuma, be it white privilege or black entitlement, in the face of the widening gap between the have and the have-nots.

ALSO READ: Unemployment down marginally, but 11.7 million still unemployed

Crime is on the rise but the rich keep getting richer, building family legacies that are unbelievable – which opposition parties and media are quick to remind us that this is from tax contributions and state-owned enterprises…

People are becoming richer off the work of people who live from paycheque to paycheque. The South African Social Security Agency is seen as a lifeline for many households, be it in the form of child support grants, pension funds, and disability grants.

These are used to put food on the table, keep the lights on, and, as minimal as they may be, these are used to help families survive from one day to another.

So, those of us who do have jobs? May we put more effort and ethics into our output – there are millions who would trade places with us in a heartbeat.

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