FIRST WORLD AMBITIONS, THIRD WORLD REALITIES
By: Gareth van Onselen
Introduction
In many ways, South Africa is a country with first world ambitions, constantly hampered by third world realities.
We have the largest economy in Africa, but an unemployment rate of 40 % and a vast percentage of the population dependent on state assistance, in one form or another. We have one of the largest police forces in the world, but the highest violent crime rate. We have huge cities and immense rural tracts of land. Indeed, we must be the only country in the world building a super underground train, while simultaneously trying to eradicate the bucket system.
This contradiction plays itself out on many different levels; and perhaps the most complex of these, is culturally. For example, we have democracy that caters for both tribal chiefs and directors-general; we have a medical system that caters for traditional healers and doctors with university degrees; and we have brutal initiation ceremonies in the Eastern Cape while, at national level, we debate legislation on abortion.
At the furthest end of the spectrum, the contrast between these two competing worlds becomes so stark as to border on the truly bizarre: While the Governor of the Reserve Bank explains to the portfolio committee on finance (and the world) why inflation targeting is necessary, the Mpumalanga legislature is considering a piece of legislation making it illegal to brand a person a witch. (Did you know some 350 people were convicted of such a crime in 2004? See here, here, here and here for more.)
Throw in other cultural practices, like the selling of human body parts, and things really become surreal. You will be surprised how often these sorts of cultural conflicts play themselves out, in day-to-day political life.
I was recently struck by a rather powerful example, one with a bit of an ironic twist. But let me set it out in a bit more detail.
Stripping the state
The DA recently received a reply from the Minister of Public Enterprises on the annual cost to Eskom of cable theft. The reply only set out the cost for the last five or six years, but if one combines it with an earlier response on the same issue, it is possible to put together a composite list for the last 14 years. Here it is (in millions of Rands):
• 1994: R9.9
• 1995: R11.6
• 1996: R11.6
• 1997: R14.3
• 1998: R15.4
• 1999: R22.9
• 2000: R21.7
• 2001: R56.1
• 2002: R94.9
• 2003: R76.0
• 2004: R27.9
• 2005: R26.5
• 2006: R25.0
• 2007: R25.2
There is a fairly evident trend. The amount increases over the first nine or so years, peaking at R94 million in 2002, before dropping and levelling out over the last four years at around R25 million.
(In comparison, the cost of cable theft to Telkom is considerably higher, as it is for the country’s various railway operators, but I do not have complete figures for these and can make my point without them. Nevertheless, they illustrate the general problem is not improving, as Eskom’s figures might suggest.)
There are numerous reasons for people to steal cables. They range from coordinated and planned theft by copper syndicates to individual acts of vandalism. With regard<
| Posted on 11/6/2008
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