YUSUF ISMAIL looks at the tragic realities of poverty in South Africa, highlighting the systemic issues that perpetuate inequality and the urgent need for societal change.
PRESENTLY there is an ongoing investigation with the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Social Development and the Verulam Child Welfare where Shivan Cumberlege, 12, shockingly hanged himself while his 4-year-old brother was in the room.
This should have been national news, but it is drowned out in the noise of monotony with episodes of such a nature being normative to the South African public rather than an aberration.
The child was forced to sell bottles and used that money to buy polony for his younger sibling. He eventually hanged himself with his mother’s sari. Such tragic incidents no longer induce a sense of shock in any of us, nor does it seem to galvanise leadership or community members to change or make any meaningful effort in uplifting society although there are respectable attempts.
The root cause of such ongoing tragedies is poverty. And shockingly so.
Within the immediate vicinity of the Izingolweni Court where I practised as a public defender from 2020 to 2024, schools still used latrines for children.
According to Stats South Africa, extreme poverty affects approximately 37,9% of the population, equating to about 23,2 million people living below the lower-bound poverty line of R1,300 per person per month. The country also remains one of the most unequal in the world, with severe inequalities in income distribution and economic breakthrough.
Millions survive on a string just above the upper-bound poverty line of R1,634 per person per month. Black African and coloured populations continue to be inexplicably squeezed, with a significant majority living below the upper poverty lines. Female-headed households also experience higher rates, and greater severity of poverty compared to male-headed households.
Highest poverty headcounts:
The provinces with the highest poverty headcounts are KZN, the Eastern Cape, North West and Limpopo. These regions are home to nearly 60% of the country’s poor. I genuinely believe that these figures of poverty are much underrated, and the scale may be significantly higher than average.
When the ordinary individual middle-income worker is struggling to bring food to the table, the situation is ever shoddier for the below income household.
African poverty throughout the continent has been driven by the structural adjustment and liberalisation policies dictated by the IMF and World Bank, combined with a legacy of apartheid economics. In this fashion, economies are squeezed and forced to open their countries to plunder by foreign multinationals and businesses, solely for maximising profit.
In the South African context, agribusiness strategies such as those supported by organisations like the South African Chamber for Agricultural Development in Africa, prioritise export-oriented agriculture over local food sovereignty. This destroys local subsistence farmers, and perpetuates rural poverty. Multinational corporations and global economic institutions essentially perpetuated apartheid-era labour frameworks.
Cheap exploited labour:
By relying on rural townships for cheap, exploited labour, global assimilation maintains severe economic disparity rather than resolving it.
The post-apartheid integration into the global economy forced developing countries, including South Africa, to adopt market deregulations. These policies concentrated wealth in the hands of global financial institutions and domestic elites, at the expense of the working class and the impoverished. The commodification of basic services and the push for privatisation have made basic utilities like water and electricity, health care, and education unaffordable for the poorest households.
Structural adjustment programmes historically implemented by the IMF and World Bank totally destroyed developing nations through severe austerity measures, currency devaluation, and privatisation. These policies frequently activated spikes in poverty, massive job losses, and a steep decline in essential public services like health care and education. It works like this. Structural adjustment programmes are economic reform packages that developing countries must accept to secure loans from the IMF or the World Bank. They typically force austerity on governments in getting them reducing public spending so that they can pay off these debts, and demand privatisation and market deregulation to allow foreign companies to purchase natural resources at reduced currency levels. One then witnesses drastic cuts in public spending, often reducing essential social services like health care and education.
The average man becomes poorer:
By selling off state-owned enterprises and utilities to private entities, the prices rocket sky-high, and the average man becomes poorer and poorer in affording these basic necessities. By eliminating price controls, subsidies and protective tariffs, ensures foreign companies have free reign to plunder. By devaluing the national currency, exports become more affordable for the West and we see reduction of trade deficits for the Americans, Europeans and Chinese. This is why Africa is reduced to total and perpetual beggary. While South Africa does not have formal IMF or World Bank structural adjustment programmes, however, the government independently implements similar structural reforms through agreements like the World Bank development policy loan agreement to manage public finances.
Imagine the cynicism at play where large-scale foreign corporate ownership which operates at a macroeconomic level, takes away the wealth of the country and natural resources; and yet the docile South African public largely views this as unavoidable. And yet that same docile public becomes a fanatical lunatic and militant against the Ethiopian or Somali spaza shop owner. This is ignorance of the real enemy within our midst.
Apartheid and land:
At the time of apartheid in 1994, more than 80% of the land was in the hands of white minority. Research data from the Institute of Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, suggest that just under 60,000 white-owned farms accounted for about 70% of the total area of the country in early 1990s.The adoption of the market-based reforms in post-apartheid South Africa meant that the already skewed distribution of wealth in the country got even worse than it was. Whites continued to reap the rewards of their previous privilege under the new economic system.
There’s no doubt that the country’s new ruling party elite has also benefited from the political system, through black economic empowerment deals. But that alliance between white monopoly capital and corrupt ANC government activity has afflicted devastating and demoralising shock on the poor since 1994. The South African economy is controlled by a dual classification which combined, and still does combine, a powerful, traditionally white-dominated private sector and a black-led state apparatus.
Shrewd elite:
Wealth and corporate ownership remain highly concentrated. A small conniving and shrewd elite, and large institutional white and European investors own the vast majority of private assets, mines, and retail businesses throughout the country.
Gold and diamonds in South Africa are primarily controlled by large, publicly-traded multinational mining corporations. The global diamond giant, De Beers, controls the primary diamond production in South Africa.
It operates as a subsidiary of the global mining company, Anglo American plc, which owns an 85% stake. The remaining 15% is held by the government of Botswana. The South African government does not own the majority of the mines in the country (which are mostly privately owned). Instead, the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy acts as the ticket issuer of all mineral resources, granting licences and rights to private and public companies.
Captured:
The South African state has been captured a long time ago by corporate and financial interests, rather than the needs of the working class or the very poor. It was the financial corporate elite that bankrolled the apartheid regime, and the same corporate elite that eventually was enabled to continue operating under the ANC government. These ANC policies that prioritised corporate profitability over the implementation of fundamental reforms, are one of the main factors leading to a never-ending abyss and downward spiral for South Africans.
We now need to demand that the state guarantee free, universal access to necessities like water, electricity, sanitation, education and health care, instead of treating them as market-driven luxuries that lead to service cut-offs for all of us. We need higher standards of service delivery and a ruthless approach to corruption. Higher corporate taxes should be imposed on foreign companies. One needs stricter exchange controls to stop wealth and capital flight out of the country. Sounds good in theory? Maybe! But the reality is that the South African economy can never be fixed under its existing capitalist and neoliberal trajectory, and change for the better will only occur through a radical, systemic overhaul led by civil society. With a greater awareness and discourse that may one day happen.
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.Â
