SAMANTHA ENSLIN-PAYNE: Where will we be this time next year?
In a year's time, on an autumn day at the end of March next year, will social grants - which already provide only the barest of safety nets - have been paid?
On Friday morning, under a big blue autumn sky, children walked to school, meeting up with friends along the way. Some stores were opening early, and two long shelves of flowers adorned the pavement. Households were putting out rubbish for the weekly collection. Just a Friday like last week, and the week before, and the week before that. Except it wasn't. Just a few weeks after the social grants crisis - which had the country heading for the precipice as about 11million people faced the prospect of no grants this weekend - was narrowly averted by the Constitutional Court, South Africa lurched straight into another one. The recall on Monday of finance minister Pravin Gordhan from an overseas trip aimed at soothing international investors set in motion a week of high drama culminating in Gordhan and his deputy, Mcebisi Jonas, being fired. In the same week, the passing of Ahmed Kathrada - a veteran of the struggle against apartheid who throughout his life was dedicated to serving this ...
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