No more hand-outs

There is growing pressure globally to resume economic activity amid the ongoing rampage of the Covid-19 coronavirus.

This is a distinct reality which now confronts leaders. Various governments have come up with measures to ameliorate the economic hardship arising from the global lockdown.

In our case, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a R500 billion package to assist small business and the most vulnerable of society.

The devil in any decision is to prevent the spread of the virus and the loss of life. The deep blue sea is the reality that any prolonged lockdown will have an adverse impact on the economy.

The agenda is to strike a balance between the two. In a country such as ours, with high inequality, poverty and unemployment, the situation is even more complex.

The pressure on government, which hardly had the financial muscle to carry the heavy burden of addressing poverty and unemployment before the lockdown, further complicates an already complex matter.

Government must resort to borrowing to make ends meet in the current circumstances.

The reality is that reopening the economy requires a major financial investment to not only recapitalise, but also to provide the support infrastructure to address the consequences of allowing the movement of people and the resultant spread of the virus.

Our economy includes an informal economy that involves ordinary citizens who hustle daily. They earn a living from selling fruit and vegetables, cooked food at street corners and similar wares. This category of the economy funds many lives and keeps hunger away from many households.

The lockdown has taken away many livelihoods in this category.

Read: Ramaphosa levels with SA on plans to reopen the economy

Equally, there are millions who depend on small businesses that are mostly run from modest homes, including mechanics and welders. There are also formalised small business which depend on economic activity to survive and thrive.

These businesses and others form part of the critical mainstay of our social and economic life.

With the projected loss of formal jobs estimated at more than 400 000, the reality is that our situation is more than complicated. The devil and the deep blue sea have been aggravated by the lockdown, and we are scrambling to figure out what reopening the economy means in real terms.

The mainstream economy, particularly that which is labour intensive, requires extensive human movement to reactivate.

It is when factories, mines and construction businesses reopen and start doing business that part of the informal economy will reignite.

This means that more people than those intended to be active will move around, posing the obvious risk of igniting another wave of infections.

Reopening the economy on its own means reopening lives. What this means, in real terms, is another matter whose real definition remains elusive.

There is a reality that things such as working from home can only apply to certain categories of people and business. A large part of the economy requires the movement of people and social interaction.

Already, various small businesses have suffered losses from which they are unlikely to recover even with support measures from government, which are limited. The measures are intended as interim relief.

But the effects of the lockdown will extend far beyond the period of these measures. There is no doubt that the extension of the current social security, particularly to the most vulnerable, is an absolute necessity under the current circumstances. The same is to be said of the measures to support business.

The idea of reopening the economy is intended to reduce the long-term effects of the lockdown while trying to preserve as many lives as possible.

Read: R750bn to save the economy

The global tourism and aviation sectors remain the hardest hit when considerations are made to reopen economies. This means that those small businesses that depend on these sectors are condemned for the foreseeable future.

Large-scale production in various sectors of the mainstream economy will take long to return to some normality. Lives will continue to be disrupted and those employers still able to afford salaries may soon be unable to.

There is a distinct risk that food security will become the second-biggest threat to humanity after Covid-19. The consumerist approach to addressing hunger and poverty is no longer sustainable and will soon reveal that we continue to throw money at the problem as opposed to targeting its cause.

If the situation worsens beyond the projected period, the measures put in place to better the lives of people during Covid-19 will have to be extended. It is not clear whether those measures are affordable or even sustainable.

One pertinent question that must be asked and answered with extreme urgency is: What is being done to activate economic activity and production of essentials, even on a household level?

The various government support programmes, particularly in areas such as food production and local beneficiation, may have not been that successful. However, the current situation excludes any further failures or complacency. Communities with pieces of land can participate in the solution by going back to the land.

Those in built-up areas can also participate by using their small yards and modern methods to produce basic foodstuff for their consumption on a sustainable basis.

It appears that the period of job-hunting and job creation must now take a totally different meaning. In the same spirit, the provision of education must take a new direction, with more appropriate methods developed and used. There is a raging debate about whether schools and universities must reopen and what will become of the academic year.

The era of self-pity and dependence has been an albatross around our necks, but simply pleading poverty and unemployment will no longer be a sustainable cry.

This pandemic has shown us that we truly live in unfamiliar times with a complex set of circumstances. It has proven that the rights in the Bill of Rights can become meaningless and eroded even without the state taking away said rights.

This is a moment when everyone, poor or rich, must wake up to the reality that it is no longer about us and them. Our economic policy, social systems and the manner in which we do things must change if we are to survive in the long term.

As we move forward, we must be able to order good food prepared from the comfort of a modest home in the township and have it delivered to the homes of those who want it.

We must move towards many who can work from the comfort of their homes and children receiving education through the use of technology as much as possible.

We can make a sustainable difference if we change our ways and reallocate the resources to supporting a better way of going about our lives and doing business.

What we cannot afford in the long term is to rely on government hand-outs. In any event, government itself can no longer afford to bail us out.

Mannya is an advocate, writer and executive director of legal services at Unisa

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