Terrifying statistics have been released, showing that more than half of our country’s citizens are poverty-stricken; and half of that figure live in extreme poverty.
That’s 13.8 million people, who are living below the breadline of R17.38 per day.
Let me explain what that means in terms that we can all understand.
There is a child living within a few meters from you, who is going to bed without a meal tonight and probably tomorrow night as well.
And there’s a very good chance that at least one day this week, that same child will go to bed without having had any food at all for the day.
I’ve mentioned before that I am noticing more people begging on the streets. It’s become so bad now, that I am literally approached by a beggar every time I stop my car or walk to the shop.
It is impossible to eat a sandwich in your car, or along the pavement, without a hungry person asking you for some.
And it has become impossible to say no!
I drive through our suburbs and I see groups of young people standing aimlessly on street corners during the day.
They are part of the nearly six million people between the ages of 15 and 34, who are unemployed and have a bleak future.
Idle hands, they say. No wonder in my neighbourhood alone, incidents of crime or attempted burglary have skyrocketed in recent months.
The combination of having no purpose, seeing no way out and starving, is an explosive one on which revolutions have been built.
Remember Marie-Antoinette lost her head to an angry and hungry French crowd?
The fact that this humanitarian disaster has been ignored by our leaders doesn’t come as a surprise either, because none of our government ministers have to worry about where their next plate of food is coming from.
I can assure you, that each and every one of them fall very comfortably into the other half of South Africans who are living very well.
The most confusing part of it all is that we are one of THE most thriving economies on the African continent.
We are fairly stable politically and socially.
We are a safe haven for tourists who fear terrorism elsewhere in the world.
We boast both thriving production and technology sectors.
We have ever-growing annual tax revenue, which implies a growing economy.
So where is all this goodwill and money going? If there aren’t enough jobs, then surely there must be enough money in the kitty to at least provide temporary grants to tide families over.
Or is it that our leaders are just too busy looking after themselves and their own futures to look out of their tinted windows and notice that the masses are starving?
These new figures from Statistics SA also come at a time when we learn that the Guptas had sold some of their businesses and may have been evading paying taxes.
They sold their mining company Tegeta for close to R3 billion and their media companies ANN7 and The New Age newspaper for R450m.
Why is this of interest? Well, if all the media reports are to be believed, then these companies were built with our tax money.
For example, ANN7 got questionable deals from the SABC, while The New Age was given exclusive distribution rights by SAA and others, amounting to many millions.
So we helped them to build successful companies (against our will), which they are now selling for hefty profits, which go into their personal bank accounts.
The emperor is fiddling, while Rome burns.
The leaders to whom we have entrusted our social and economic wellbeing, have been blinded by the shiny suits and sparkly houses we have allowed them to buy with our money.
Some may say I am exaggerating the situation when I talk about it being the spark that could ignite our powder keg.
But even the former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, Njongonkulu Ndungane, has warned that if government doesn’t act urgently, it could “lead to a blow-up in our society which is too terrible to contemplate”.
And by that he means revolution. There’s only one thing that motivates a man into action more than his own rumbling belly, and that’s the rumbling tummy of his children.