Friday, November 20, 2020

DESPAIR, ANXIETY AND SHEER HOPELESSNES HAS GRIPPED MANY, MANY PEOPLE IN RESIDENTIAL AREAS IN AND AROUND DURBAN

 



 

A climate of despair, anxiety and sheer hopelessness has gripped many, many people in a number of residential areas in and around Durban.

The loss of jobs and retrenchments during and after the start of the Corona Virus lockdown in March (2020) have seriously affected the lives of thousands of previously productive people.

I witnessed this really very sad state of affairs and development when on Friday (Nov 20 2020) I visited the Longberry area of Phoenix, north of Durban, to visit my father’s sister.  

A short distance away from my aunty’s home is a shopping centre where hundreds of people were lined up in two queues on the side of one of the roads.

It was about 11:30am.

I went along to the shopping centre to check the situation. I asked one of the people why were they waiting in two long lines on the side of the road.

“We are waiting here to register for our UIF money,” one middle-aged man told me. He declined to give me his name for fear of being victimised by the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF).

He worked for a construction company for 10 years and after the lockdown was introduced in March (2020) he was retrenched.

He had applied for his UIF funds in August but to date he has not received any payments despite visiting the UIF office several times.

“We are having a difficult time because I have not been earning any wages since March this year,” he said.





After making further inquiries, I was told that the some of the people in the two lines had come from far afield as KwaDukuza, to the north, and Sydenham-Asherville in Durban. Most of the people had been waiting in the two queues from early as 2:30am in the hope that they would be attended to before the UIF officials close the office at 4pm.

Most of the people were wearing masks according to the Covid-19 regulations. But, unfortunately, they were not maintaining any social distance whatsoever.

“Only 10 people are attended to in the office and they take about two to three hours to finish,” said one person, who has been waiting since 3am.

“We don’t know why do they take so long to attend to the people. It must either be the computers are not working or the officials are not competent enough to do their jobs,” he said.





Another desperate person in the queue was a lady in her early 60s. She had been working for a travel company for more than 40 years but she was asked to take early retirement in March after the lockdown was introduced.

She had applied for her unemployment funds in April but to date her application has not been finalised yet.

“I don’t know what is going on? I have been waiting here since early this morning but they only attend to 10 people at a time. The other day I waited for the whole day without being attended to,” said the seriously concerned woman.

“What is more tragic is that I have not yet received my pension payments from my company.”

From my conversations with several other people it is clear that people who have lost their jobs since the start of the lockdown in March are finding it very difficult to pay their bills and to “put food on the table” for their families.

“We are suffering and I don’t know when the situation is going to improve for the people,” said one young man.

Hopelessness and despair seems to have gripped the people on the margins of society. It’s hoped that President Cyril Ramaphosa and other leaders from the ruling party will step out of their plush offices and palaces and visit the marginalised areas to see the situation for themselves.

What’s tragic is that there are no government social workers visiting these desperate families and to provide assistance for them? Only non-government organisations such as the Gift of the Givers are providing food parcels for desperate families at this time.

The latest gross unemployment situation is having a serious impact on the social lives of the people. Ramaphosa and his “people’s government” must ensure that conducive conditions are created for the economy to grow so that people could find jobs to feed their families. Unfavourable labour laws and runaway violent crime will only deter business leaders to invest in our economy.

Ramaphosa must decide either to have favourable labour laws for business people to continue to invest in the economy or rising unemployment where the country’s new democracy is threatened? – ends subrygovender@gmail.com Nov 20 2020  

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