It's time to fix SA without the help of crooked politicians

Dave, my long-time friend, sits as a trustee in a body corporate of a block of flats near Milnerton, Cape Town. In response to the worsening electricity crisis, around October 2022, the body corporate decided to invest in backup battery support for the residential unit it oversees. They approached one of the growing number of service providers in this area, paid the 80% deposit he demanded (if they wanted the job done before the end of the year) and waited, and waited.

After several unreturned messages followed by frustrated conversations, the tones of which began to take unsavoury turns, the supplier told them that he had a long list of customers to deliver the same services to and would, decidedly, no longer be able to "help them" before end of January 2023.

As I write as we head into week 2 of February, Dave, his fellow trustees, and residents in his residential unit are still waiting, wondering what to do to get the service they’ve put down an 80% deposit for delivered. Having put down the money before work was started, they have placed the power squarely in the hands of the unscrupulous supplier.

Dave’s experience is by far not unique. There are increasing numbers of South Africans who are being taken for a ride by new service providers and suppliers out for a quick buck with no intention to deliver on the promises they make after they take the upfront deposits they demand.

South Africans who have had building construction work done for them over the years have countless experiences of upfront deposits being paid and contractors either taking much longer time to get on site and finish the work, with costs escalating, or simply walking away from unfinished work.

In some cases, clients discover soon after the contractor has left that they have been left with shoddy work requiring repairs at huge expenses, with the contractor either no longer taking their calls or simply telling them off when politely they ask for expected "after-service/sales support".

The leadership failures and the institutional rot that have gradually taken hold in South Africa over, arguably, the past two decades, have created green pastures for all kinds of opportunists in a thriving black economy filled by all kinds of unscrupulous opportunists out to fleece unsuspecting citizens of their hard-earned money.

Goods of all kinds and price levels, sometimes obtained during violent - even murderous - home invasions, armed robberies, and daylight infrastructure destruction and shameless harvesting of it in full view of citizen videographers on their smartphones, easily find their way into the hands of willing resellers within the borders of South Africa and in neighbouring countries.

The latter can be second-hand shops, car parts resellers, bicycle shops, scrapyards, individual resellers at traffic intersections and on door-to-door walkabouts, as well as many others who do not ask questions because, seemingly, the law doesn’t require them to, about the origin of the goods being presented to them for resale.

As I pointed out, there is a growing and thriving black market economy consisting of South Africans and foreigners alike who do not care to know whether women/children were raped or other innocent people were stabbed, shot, or killed in their homes, businesses, places of work and in public places in the sourcing of the loot being presented to them.

It's up to all of us

South Africans are correct to moan about the myriad of abuses they see in the government and political arena, but few seem willing to look into the mirror and to question their own role in the enablement of what is being done to their country.

At some level, we are all complicit through our silence or active enablement.

Many of us continue to offer protection and hiding places for relatives and friends on the run from whatever remains of the country’s crime fighting services. Some even do so for relatives and friends on the run after breaking out from prison, irrespective of the crimes they have been arrested for and the lives they would have taken during their escape. It is all a real mess, making South Africa seem like a fully perforated bucket with too many holes to pluck.???????

As these things continue, we can no longer just look at politicians to change their behaviour for the sake of the country. It is up to all South Africans to find a way to coalesce around a refreshed set of values and principles, and agree on what kind of country they want to live in and what role they will play, at individual and group level, to contribute to taking back the country from the criminals in politics, in both formal and informal the business sectors, as well as around communities throughout the country.

It is hard to imagine how any healing and lasting recovery can happen without any acknowledgement and action taking place at individual and group levels.

South Africa is bleeding

There is a fear that people born within the past 20 to 30 years might only have known and been accustomed to a country where the men and women entering politics get treated as heroes and heroines who deserve fear, worship and instant wealth, instead of being servants of the people. Another danger is that such people would have grown up in a country where lawlessness and the destruction of public property are the legitimised ways to expressing unhappiness and frustration.

In the absence of credible leaders who can stand on a moral high ground and set the tone from the front, there is also a danger of young South Africans believing that it is normal to live in a world of "man for himself and no one for anyone" and wherein the absence of a well-embraced social cohesion and ubuntu are normalised, such concepts only belonging to historical literature and occasional sermons about what we used to be like.

In the end, South Africans need to wake up to the existential dangers starring whatever dream they had of a "South Africa they could have built" in the eye, get together and take action to make sure the country doesn’t fall irretrievably over the precipice. Should this not happen, the work to bring it back will be almost impossible.????