KENNETH MOKGATLHE: Let us abandon the growing culture of dependency

SA is fast becoming a welfare state, with about half the population now relying solely on social welfare for their survival.

Grants to children, older people, those living with disabilities, military veterans and juveniles in foster care cover 18-million people, while an extra 11-million unemployed people have been receiving the R350 social relief of distress grant since the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. We thus have about
29-million people benefiting from social welfare programmes, and fewer than 8-million earning enough income to pay personal taxes.

The governing ANC appears to believe that almost half of SA’s estimated 60-million population being dependent on state largesse is something to boast about. While social grants clearly play a pivotal role in helping many households living in abject poverty to survive, it is a big concern that the recipients are becoming permanently dependent on the state rather than expecting to eventually find employment. 

Before democracy in 1994 SA communities knew they could not depend on the government for handouts, so they did things for themselves. When I was growing up in what is now rural North West the community had several windmills that supplied clean and drinkable water. When a windmill broke down we did not wait for a messiah to fix it for us; we knew it was our responsibility. We built our own houses, churches, schools and healthcare centres. We bred our own cattle, grew crops and processed and prepared them for consumption. This compares to the present situation, where the same community is now dependent on the government for everything.

The Black Consciousness-orientated Black Community Programme was established in the early 1970s by the late Steve Biko and his peers in an attempt to instil a culture of self-reliance, development, political consciousness and a liberation agenda. Black professionals were encouraged to work and contribute in the communities where they were brought up, to develop their own settlements and communities.

The wave of development brought about by the Black Community Programme spread countrywide. Communities started to build their own schools, churches, roads, communal water boreholes, dams and healthcare centres. Every household was expected to make a donation or contribute in kind to buy building materials, and those who knew how to build would come and contribute through their craft skills. Many of the schools, churches, communal water boreholes and healthcare facilities that were built by these communities are still functional today.

However, these community initiatives and people-led projects were abandoned post-1994 and a culture of dependency and absolute reliance on the government took hold. The ANC government committed to delivering a “better life for all” in its election campaigns, and through its Reconstruction & Development Programme (RDP) economic and social policy. 

Whether intentionally or otherwise, the ANC has created a dependency syndrome, with more and more people willingly becoming part of a ballooning social welfare programme. This system is often lauded as one of the best social mechanisms to alleviate poverty, and it is hard to argue with that, but the danger in the longer term is that social welfare dependency will become permanent entitlement. 

Like his predecessors and his party, President Cyril Ramaphosa brags about the social welfare programme, apparently not realising that this celebration amounts to an acknowledgment that he is failing to create a favourable environment conducive to job creation in SA.

As a Black Consciousness activist in his youth, Ramaphosa should rather be pursuing a self-reliance and community initiative agenda, where people are actively responsible for their own economic development and social transformation. People should be re-educated to depend on themselves so that they can go forward rather than expecting the government to do everything for them.

On its part, the government should ensure that it performs its constitutional obligations diligently without people having to protest before receiving basic services. The national and local governments have a responsibility to ensure that the environment is favourable for economic development and job creation, which includes providing reliable potable water supplies, electricity and improved roads.

A large dairy company, Clover, was forced to close its plant in Lichtenburg, North West, due to the Ditsobotla local municipality and provincial government’s failure to provide usable roads, sufficient electricity and reliable water supplies. Many people lost jobs as a result of this ineptitude, which simply pushed more families into dependency on state social welfare. 

This is not sustainable. 

• Mokgatlhe is an independent political analyst and writer based in North West.