TUESDAY GUEST EDITORIAL
Eskom – starving the country to fund the feeding trough
Cumulatively, the alleged annual loss to corruption within just one of South Africa’s 24 state-owned enterprises costs the country more than all of its school feeding, early childhood development feeding and emergency food aid programmes combined.
André de Ruyter, who recently survived an attempt on his life while trying to root out corruption at Eskom, made national headlines this week when he alleged that the state-owned utility is losing R1-billion a month to theft and corruption. That’s R12-billion per year – not to mention the far greater knock-on effects of Eskom on our crippled economy.
Every day, in a different world, 61,000 community volunteers who are paid a basic stipend of just R92 per day, wake up, get dressed and make their way to one of the 21,000 low-income schools across our country. There, supported by funds from the Department of Basic Education, these volunteers prepare and serve a nutritionally balanced meal to 9.5 million children.
They do this every school day of the year.
In case you were wondering, that’s 1.9 billion meals a year.
Families rely heavily on the school feeding scheme to fill their children’s tummies. (Photo: Deon Ferreira)
This is South Africa’s National School Nutrition Programme. It costs you and I, the taxpayer, about R8,8-billion a year. It makes me happy to think that for every R4.60 I pay over to SARS at the end of the year, a child gets a meal to help them learn.
This is the kind of tax I want to pay.
South Africa also has a growing early childhood nutrition programme which provides meals, via a vast network of early childhood development (ECD) centres, to the most vulnerable little humans among us: children up to the age of five who are at the most critical developmental stage of their lives.
ECD’s receive R17 per child per day, of which a minimum of R6.80 is set aside for meals: small pieces of fruit and a warm meal on colourful plastic plates placed into eager little hands.
Outgoing Eskom chief André de Ruyter. (Photo: Gallo Images / Brenton Geach)
Additionally, about 625,000 children up to the age of five benefit from these meals every day.
This costs you and me roughly R1.1-billion per year.
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Currently, however, only 9.5% of children are covered under this grant. With what De Ruyter claims is being stolen from Eskom in just one month, we could extend this programme to an additional 600,000 children for an entire year.
Read in Daily Maverick: “‘Leave no community behind’ – the stories we will tell in 2023 and why they should matter to you”
Sometimes when numbers get too big they lose all meaning and perspective to those of us still accustomed to working in rands and cents. Cumulatively, the alleged annual loss to corruption within just one of South Africa’s 24 state-owned enterprises costs the country more than all of its school feeding, ECD feeding and emergency food aid programmes combined.
In the plainest terms: the money De Ruyter alleges is being stolen from Eskom is enough to eradicate child hunger in South Africa. Could voters and opposition leaders ask for a better reason to demand a tougher stance on State Capture in the lead-up to the 2024 elections? DM/MC
Dr Luke Metelerkamp is a research associate at the Centre For Sustainability Transitions
A sad state of affairs, my personal opinion is the average ANC cadre does not care about the future in any shape or form, just content to extract all they can in the present irrespective of the consequences
Spot on. I wish DM would introduce a thumbs up thing so we could approve of comments without having to write it!
I support your desire for a thumbs-up so that we can support a comment without having to write it.
Agreed Dee Bee; and also publish the comment/reply/like immediately, without this silly delay for moderation and, worst of all, having to jump through the hoops by “peer reviewing” three comments (I never read the three, I just click on the green “approve” bar). I suggested streamlining the comments to DM but, sadly, now that they have grown so successfully, I doubt Heather Robinson or anyone else actually pays attention to what SM Insiders actually want.
Agree with the likes/ dislikes idea.
I just wish that one of the self absorbed, highly opinionated, self righteous, self appointed bastions of serving the poor, who are actually worse than pig excrement – would publicly resign and distance themselves from this cesspool of thieving scum other wise known as the Tripartite Alliance.
They really are the scum of the earth.
Yip. Life in prison for the lot of them.
Thank you for this sobering analysis. Childhood malnutrition leaves permanent cognitive damage and explains much of the appaling educational outcomes later in life in SA. The effects will be around for decades to come. In the world of Gwede, Pravin and the rest it is better the cadres eat than the children, I suppose.
I second your opinion.
Or wash their hands in 15 year old whisky!
How do we get voters to see, believe and understand this? Its not like corruption is new and the ANC are still in power.
Getting the voters to see this and then actually voting for someone else is our biggest problem. They just stay away and don’t realise the voting process is secret!!!
The tougher stance will come when parliament passes laws that properly comply with the criteria set in binding terms by the Constitutional Court in 2011. These criteria are the basic requirements for effective and efficient anti-corruption machinery of state. We have had none since the demise of the Scorpions and we won’t get any proper corruption busters until government applies the criteria to the remedial legislation required. State Capture happened under the noses of the Hawks and the NPA. State Capture is ongoing in SA. A Chapter Nine Institution to prevent, combat, investigate and prosecute serious corruption is what is needed. Government is resisting reform for obvious reasons.
R4.60 of my tax eh? What happens to the rest of it is the crux of the moral dilemma. The R1,000 that is stolen, abused, corrupted and used to pay fat ministers before we get to the R4.60 in other words…. paying that it could be argued is in fact morally wrong.
The reality is that all the Eskom tariff increases were engineered to enable payments to cadres. What they steal is a drop in the ocean, a big drop no less, vs what they cost the country in losses and damages. All to satisfy an idiotic lust to wash their hands in 15y old whisky…
How does one demand a tougher stance if people carry on voting for the gangsters?
a neo Faustian gridlock…
Oh, shame, you make the ANC sound like nothing but arsewipes. Scum is to good a word for what they have done. Viva, ANC, Viva!
Let us hope the voting masses are good with numbers….and their precious vote.
People get the government they deserve!
Bloody heartbreaking and little likelihood of change. It’s way beyond depressing. ANC voters are unlikely to ever have access to this kind of information – and that’s the major problem. The average person is not heartless, just ill-informed. That’s a tough proposition and until we break through expect more of the same.
They talk of free education but in truth it does not suit the ANC to educate the masses. An uneducated voter base is far easier to manipulate with a t shirt and false promises.
Does anyone believe that the ANC gives a fig about starving children? They are totally heartless – stealing from the poor is lower than low.
ANC = A National Catastrophy.
Nice one Luke, and spot on. You capture two key issues; the selflessness of some (the volunteers) vis a vis the greed and selfishness of others (the thieves – there is actually no better word), and the amount of critical work that can be done with tiny amounts of money – in the right hands of course. For me the story highlights once again the need for civil society to come together and reshape society, including the political system, in its entirety to remove the opportunities for the thieves (and increasingly murderers – including the denial of food to children, which can be tantamount to murder – to take over. It is time for real democracy, with the citizens truly in charge. A big ask, but becoming increasingly necessary. Judging by the number of comments, you have struck a chord with many!
Simply do not have appropriate words to describe the impact these crimes have on ordinary South Africans. The worst “eating” happening in clear sight to all of us, whilst the 99% suffers. How can this be stopped, and the selfish crooks be brought to face music of the worst kind. Their ends are nigh though, because the people get to know more every hour via platforms such as our selfless investigative journalists and others. Kudos to you all who work tirelessly and under to most difficult conditions! We shall not be silenced, and we shall not be afraid to root out the evil trash by any means necessary. Houses of cards are forever trying to fight Gravity, and Gravity ALWAYS WINS. Let the games begin!, because, how dare the thieves have the nerve to continue doing bad things to all the good people, knowing that their cards are already on the tables. No meds for stupidity and greed. HaHaHa bloody fools