Can South Africa escape what has happened to its northern neighbours? I doubt it

A study by the United Nations University released in December 2020  painted an equally  bleak picture: “Net household wealth is also extremely concentrated within the top 10%. The top 1% of the South African adult population (350 000 individuals) own 55% of aggregate personal wealth, and the top 0.1% alone (35 000 individuals) own almost a third of wealth. The top 0.01% of the distribution, amounting to some 3 500 individuals, own about 15% of household wealth, greater than the share of wealth owned by the bottom 90% of the population consisting of 32 million individuals,” it said.

“The bottom 50% of the South African population have negative net worth: the levels of the debts that they owe exceeds the market value of the assets they own.”

South Africa, therefore, will continue to “prosper” if the status quo remains. And this might be difficult to change as long as the majority believe they are better off than their neighbours to the north.

South Africa will, however, go down- whether people like it or not-if it addresses this anomaly. And things could be worse than what happened in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe has reached rock bottom and the only way now is up. On the other hand, the current electricity load shedding in South Africa, which reports say is likely to go on for another 12 months, could be the beginning of the country’s slide. To make matters worse, the country’s biggest city has been having eater problems that have largely gone unreported. According to the Daily Maverick: “For all of 2022, the water supply in the southwest of Johannesburg and north of the city has been on and off, and in August, it went off completely in many areas.”

South Africa may be getting away with problems because they go largely unreported unless they affect those who control the media. Any problem in Zimbabwe, on the other hand, is blown out of proportion by the very same South African media.

Note: The author lived and worked in South Africa for six years before returning to Zimbabwe seven years ago.

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