What affects people’s brain function as they grow older? We sought answers in rural South Africa

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The world’s population is aging and for the first time ever there are more people over the age of 65 than under the age of 5. This global trend is reflected in many sub-Saharan African countries, including South Africa.

As people age, they experience a number of biological changes. These can include cognitive decline such as the ability to recall certain facts, concentrate or make decisions. Some cognitive decline is normal. But a more rapid or severe decline that affects activities of daily living is not. This can be a result of certain conditions such as stroke, Alzheimer’s disease or other related dementia.

Certain health and behavioural factors can influence the trajectory of cognitive decline. A healthy, balanced diet and regular physical activity make a difference in a positive way. Health conditions that have a negative effect include cardiovascular disease risk factors, such as hypertension and high cholesterol.

Most of the research that’s been done on dementia has been conducted in high-income countries. Little work has been done in Africa. Yet by 2050 the continent is expected to be home to an estimated 72 million people with Alzheimer’s or related dementia.

We set out to measure the prevalence and predictors of cognitive impairment in older rural South Africans. We found that the levels were strongly associated with age, and were similar to those reported by other studies from sub-Saharan Africa and around the world.

We also found that the key factors related to a decline in cognitive function in people over 40 years of age were being a woman, levels of education, marital status and being poor.

What we learned

Our study is the largest ever undertaken on cognitive function in older rural South Africans.

The work was carried out as part of the health and aging in Africa study (HAALSI): a larger study on aging in rural South Africa. The study took place within the Agincourt Health and Demographic Surveillance System, which is located in rural northeast South Africa and run by South Africa’s Medical Research Council and the University of the Witwatersrand’s Agincourt Research Unit.

The site is representative of much of rural South Africa and the cohort is currently one of the largest, most well-defined active groups of older people on the African continent.

All participants provided written, informed consent to participate in the study. Participants with treatable medical conditions, such as high blood pressure, were referred to local health facilities.

We interviewed 5,059 adults 40 years and older. We assessed orientation (whether a person recognised who they were, where they were, and what time it was), and immediate and delayed recall of 10 words read out loud.

Overall, 8% of the population had cognitive impairment, with a significant increase in prevalence by age (2% in those 40-44 years older compared to 24% in those 75 years or older). This is similar to the limited number of other studies in sub-Saharan Africa. The same trends are seen around the world. But direct comparison can be difficult due to differences in the tools used to measure cognition and the different composition of study participants.

Drivers

We found that the factors that made the biggest contribution to people’s cognitive function included being a woman. Nine percent of the women had poor cognition, versus 7% of men. Other factors included being poor and the person’s level of education.

Other studies have shown that formal education creates “cognitive reserve”. This is the idea that people’s ability to deal with cognitive tasks differs. People with increased cognitive reserve may have better cognition later in life. We wanted to see what the effect of limited or no education was on cognition in the South African context.

We found a strong correlation between the level of formal education and cognitive score. Those with no formal education performed worse than those with some primary education. This was true of both men and women at all age groups. Those with some primary education, at all ages, performed worse than those with some secondary education.

Women with no formal education had lower cognitive scores than men. However, the difference in cognitive scores between women and men disappeared in those who had any form of formal education. This suggests that even poor quality education may positively affect later life cognitive function.

When it came to health factors, we did find an association between HIV and hypertension and higher cognitive scores. This surprising finding needs further research. A history of physician-diagnosed stroke, angina or heart attack was associated with lower cognitive scores.

What next?

Over the next four years, we will continue to follow the participants. Our aim is to characterise the cognitive function and trajectory in the cohort more carefully. We will do this by using technology such as neuroimaging. This involves looking at changes to brain structure and size. We will also be using more refined cognitive assessments delivered on a tablet.

And we will look at the effect on cognition of social factors, such as the size of social network and amount of social interaction, and biological factors, such as changes in brain size and structure as well as the presence of certain biomarkers.

By understanding the rate of decline and the factors affecting it, we can begin to think about possible ways of intervening.

As the global and African population ages, levels of cognitive decline and dementia will increase. Studies such as ours can provide useful information that will allow clinicians, researchers and policymakers to understand the burden better. Importantly, interventions can be developed with the aim of enabling every person to age more gracefully.

Ryan G Wagner, Research Fellow, Wits School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand and Darina Bassil, Research associate, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

South Africa's main opposition party shows signs of serious strain

Helen Zille’s election as head of the Democratic Alliance’s federal council has rattled many.
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South Africa’s main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, elected a new chairperson of its federal council this past weekend. Its choice – Helen Zille, former leader of the party, and former Premier of the Western Cape province – has sent shock waves through the party.

The immediate fallout from her reelection to the top DA post was the resignation of Herman Mashaba, the DA mayor of South Africa’s largest city, Johannesburg. He decried Zille’s win as signalling a takeover of the party by rightwing elements.

Mashaba’s resignation is puzzling. A self-made businessman as well as a former chairman of a rightwing think tank, the Free Market Foundation, his criticism of Zille seems misplaced. His views on economic issues are on the right of the political spectrum. And Mashaba sounds even more conservative than Zille on the issue of undocumented immigrants.

Zille was elected to the party’s top post because she remains popular among the DA’s membership base. She is also the last top DA leader with anti-apartheid struggle credentials dating back to the 1980s End Conscription Campaign and the veteran human rights organisation the Black Sash.

But she’s also a hugely controversial figure. The reasons for this stem from comments she has made on Twitter in recent years, including a series in which she defended the legacy of colonialism.

Her posts prompted stinging criticism from the DA’s national leader, Mmusi Maimane, as well as other black members of the party.

Zille’s appointment, Mashaba’s resignation and signs that there is a concerted campaign within certain quarters of the party to get rid of Maimane all point to a political party that’s in deep turmoil. This affects the DA’s strength as official opposition nationally.

Tensions in the DA

The DA can best be described, mostly, as a broad church of liberals. One point on its spectrum are what could be called “equal-opportunity liberals”. Mainly white liberals, this group tends to oppose affirmative action, arguing that it violates the principle that opportunities should be allocated on merit.

Another faction comprises “affirmative action or diversity liberals”. The group is mainly black and supports race-based affirmative action as a way of addressing the past injustices of apartheid.

These camps are divided – not entirely, but significantly – along colour lines.

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Read more:
Liberalism in South Africa isn't only for white people -- or black people who want to be white

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As well as policy, there are other dimensions to tensions within the party.

One is around the coalitions it established in three cities after elections in 2016 when neither the ANC nor the DA won sufficient support to run the councils.

In Nelson Mandela Bay the DA took over running the highly corrupt council by establishing a coalition with a much smaller party, the United Democratic Movement. The partnership was fraught and finally collapsed in 2018 amid a great deal of acrimony.

In the cities of Tshwane, home to the country’s capital Pretoria, and Johannesburg, the DA’s toehold on power has been even more fragile. The DA is in a tactical alliance in both councils with the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) – the third largest party in the country, which presents itself as politically radical and to the left of the DA and ANC.

The DA and EFF’s tactical alliance involves the EFF supporting the DA’s mayors on a vote-by-vote basis, or abstaining from voting.

This appears to limit the DA from completely instituting the clean governance which it has made the showcase of its rule.

Another dimension to the DA’s current situation is that the party has two centres of power. Zille, as the newly elected chair of the federal council, the party’s highest decision-making structure in between its federal congresses, holds arguably the most powerful post in the DA. Maimane, as leader of the party, will be bound by the policy and strategic choices of the federal council led by Zille.

What next

It would be strategic for Zille and Maimane to immediately and seriously negotiate the relationship between themselves and between their posts. It will also be strategic for Zille to let a professional public relations officer handle her Twitter account in future.

Part of leadership is about making tough choices. One of these will be: does the DA relinquish power in Nelson Mandela Bay, in Johannesburg and in Tshwane, rather than taint its brand as the clean-up party?

If it fails to make these hard decisions it risks sliding even further in the polls. The party secured only 20.8% of the national poll in elections earlier this year.

This result is no doubt what’s brought the present tensions to a head – and not only about the future of Maimane. Other failures that have been pointed out include the DA losing Afrikaner voters to the rightwing Freedom Front Plus (FF+).

In 15 months the party will be in full campaigning mode for the local government elections in 2021. It will therefore need to finalise its leadership posts, its candidates, and its policies in the intervening months.

As well as preventing Afrikaner voters from swinging back to the Freedom Front Plus, the DA also needs to strategise how it plans to win back black votes, and win more of them than ever before.

For example, it needs to spell out its alternative options to affirmative action and black economic empowerment. This debate often goes under the title of “race as a proxy for disadvantage” – mostly economic disadvantage.

All told, the 60-year-old DA faces an interesting and complex year ahead. As the party grows larger, the coalition of viewpoints within it must also grow. Maybe it could learn a few lessons from the governing African National Congress, which brings together nationalists, communists and the labour movement, among other persuasions, in a veritable broad church.

Keith Gottschalk, Political Scientist, University of the Western Cape

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

Two crime hotspots still without permanent police stations

Five years after Khayelitsha Commission of Inquiry, recommendation to build new station still not implemented

The Khayelitsha Commission of Inquiry in 2014 recommended a new police station for Makhaza. But there is still no clue when the area will get a permanent one. Photo: Masixole Feni

Residents living in two areas whose recorded murders are among the highest in the country are still without permanent police stations.

In Makhaza residents told GroundUp they spent at least R40 for a round trip to the nearest police station in Harare. The land earmarked for the construction of a new police station in Makhaza remains empty. While in Samora Machel, the Community Policing Forum spokesperson said he is satisfied with the temporary station placed there ten months ago, which serves thousands in the area.

In the 2018/19 crime statistics, Samora Machel falls under Nyanga and Makhaza falls under Khayelitsha. Nyanga is the precinct with the highest number of murders in the country at 289. Not far behind, in third, was Khayelitsha with 221 murders.

Makhaza

The land where the police station is meant to be built is still vacant. Despite attempts to find out more about the expected construction, the South African Police Service (SAPS) has been tight-lipped about exactly when building would start. This comes nearly five years after the Khayelitsha Commission of Inquiry made findings and recommendations.

Recommendation 19 of 20 made by the Commission stated that a new police station should be established at Makhaza. The community has been waiting for its station since 2004.
But in 2019 Makhaza residents still have to travel by taxi to the nearest station in Harare — more than 5km away — to report a crime.

National police spokesperson Colonel Athlenda Mathe said: “Makhaza police station is in the planning and design phase, at a very advanced stage.” She provided no time frames for the construction of the building.

The Social Justice Coalition (SJC) has been at the forefront of campaigning for the implementation of the Commission’s recommendations. The SJC’s head of policy and research, Dali Weyers, said the organisation had “no correspondence with or from SAPS” about the construction of the Makhaza police station.

Weyers said that the SAPS annual report for 2016/17 stated that it had failed to acquire the land in Makhaza for the station. But a more recent report for 2017/18 stated that the land acquisition had been finalised by 20 February 2018. “The ‘very advanced stage’ response from SAPS, without additional and clear time frames is problematic,” said Weyers.

Samora Machel

In December 2018, GroundUp reported that a temporary police station had been placed in Samora Machel. This after Minister of Police Bheki Cele announced in May last year that the area would get a permanent police station by 2023. But some residents in the area say the temporary station has already brought much-needed relief.

“Let us get one thing straight, Samora does not have a temporary or mobile police station; we have a fully fledged police station with a full complement of staff members,” said Samora Machel’s community policing forum spokesperson Bongani Maqungwana.

He said it was important to mention that Samora Machel stopped falling under Nyanga since December. “Our police station services Sweet Home Farm, Kosovo and Heinz Park. The recent crime statistics are a reflection of 2018/2019 when Samora was still under Nyanga,” he said.

Maqungwana said that since the station was opened, there has been a significant decline in crime. “Even though we are still struggling with the increment of officers and vehicles, I have to compliment them because our police are visible. They have an open door policy so the community feels free to report crimes.” He said the brick building, expected next year, is still needed. The current station consists of prefabricated structures.

Colonel Mathe told GroundUp that the prefabricated structures are an “interim solution” but did not say when the permanent station would be built.

© 2019 GroundUp.
 27 September 2019   By Mary-Anne Gontsana

Cape Town's bloody gang violence is inextricably bound up in its history

Today’s gang violence on the Cape Flats can’t be divorced from Cape Town’s history of forced removals.
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When the apartheid government decided to evict people it called Coloured from Cape Town’s inner city, it set off a chain reaction that now requires military intervention.

More than 50 years on from the mass evictions that drove anyone who wasn’t white from the city centre, the South African National Defence Force has moved in to guard the areas known collectively as the Cape Flats. It was to these places that Coloured people were pushed by the Group Areas Act. So it’s necessary to look to history – which I’ve explored in a number of my books, most recently Gang Town – as violence in suburbs far from the city centre escalates.

Given the framework within which removals under the Group Areas Act took place in Cape Town, a social disaster was inevitable. As the familiar social landmarks in the closely grained working-class communities of the old city were ripped up, a whole culture began to disintegrate.

Networks of kin, friendship, neighbourhood and work were destroyed. The streets, houses and corner shops that also formed networks were torn away. With this destruction the mixture of rights and obligations, intimacies and distances, solidarity, local loyalties and traditions that bound established communities dissipated.

Above all, what the Group Areas Act’s inroads into the culture of the older districts fundamentally disturbed was the organisation and role of the working-class family. One of the major problems that arose from all this was the collapse of social control over the youth. One of the greatest complaints about Group Areas removals was that individual families rather than whole neighbourhoods were moved to the Cape Flats.

Amid these complex developments and realities, gangs emerged. There had been smaller, less hierarchical and organised gangs in areas like District Six from which people were forcibly removed. But harsh conditions on the Cape Flats saw much fiercer gangs forming and increasing use of knives and, later, handguns.

Isolation and fear

The first effect of the removals into the high-rise schemes on the Cape Flats was to destroy the way the street, the corner shop and the shebeens in the “old” areas had provided the residents with a great measure of communal space. The new areas contained only the privatised space of small, nuclear family units.

These were stacked on top of each other in total isolation, juxtaposed with the totally public space surrounding them – a space that lacked any of the informal social controls generated by their former neighbourhoods. A key control was that houses in the old areas had verandas where older people would sit and informally police the streets. On the Cape Flats you were either behind a door or on the street.

The destruction of the neighbourhood street also blew out the candle of household production, craft industries and services. The result was a gradual polarisation of the labour force into those with more specialised, skilled or better paid jobs; those with the dead-end, low-paid jobs; and the unemployed.

As the new housing pattern dispersed the kinship network, so the isolated family could no longer call on the resources of the extended family or the neighbourhood. The nuclear family itself became the sole focus of solidarity.

This meant that problems tended to be bottled up within the immediate interpersonal context that produced them. At the same time, family relationships gathered a new intensity to compensate for the diversity of relationships previously generated through neighbours and wider kinship ties.

Pressures gradually built up, which many newly nuclear families were unable to deal with. The working-class household was thus not only isolated from the outside, but also undermined from within. The main, and understandable, product of this isolation was fear: fear of neighbours, of unknown people, of gangs and of the strange dynamics of the new environment.

The author discussing his book “Gang Town”

These pressures weighed heavily on the house-bound mothers. The street was no longer a safe place for children to play in and there were no longer neighbours or kin to supervise them. The only play-space that felt safe was “the home”, the small flat. As stresses began to build up within the nuclear family, what had once been a base for support and security now tended to become a battleground, a major focus of all the anxieties created by the disorganisation of community.

One route out of the claustrophobic tensions of family life was the use of alcohol and drugs. This became the standard path of many men. Children were shaken loose in different ways. One way was into early sexual relationships and perhaps marriage.

Another was into the fierce youth subcultures on the streets which became ritualised in the violent youth-gang culture, reinforcing the neighbourhood climate of fear. The situation was to be compounded by rising unemployment at the younger end of a potential labour force and the consolidation of illegal markets that required “soldiers” to protect.

What these gangs did in order to survive in the face of tremendous odds was to rebuild the lost organisation and domestic economy in the new housing-estates. This time, however, their customers and they themselves were often also their victims.

Then came 1994 and the newly elected African National Congress (ANC) government inherited, in Cape Town, a working class that was like a routed, scattered army, dotted in confusion about the land of their birth.

The ultimate losers in this type of claustrophobic atmosphere are the working-class families. For those scattered across the Cape Flats, the emotional brutality dealt out to them in the name of rational urban planning has been incalculable. The only defence the young people have had has been to build something coherent out of the one thing they had left – each other.

Too little too late

Bringing soldiers onto the Cape Flats is too little and too late to unscramble the political omelette. What’s needed is not repression but contrition, better intelligence and the rebuilding of damaged communities whiplashed by gunfire.

Don Pinnock, Research fellow, criminologist, University of Cape Town

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

South Africa's finances are in bad shape. It's running out of time to fix them

Under President Jacob Zuma the economy didn’t recover as much as it should have from the global financial crisis.
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South Africa’s public finances are in a perilous state. There are four main reasons for this. First, economic growth is low or non-existent. Second, tax revenue collection is repeatedly below forecasts. Third, debt levels have risen rapidly and are now at their highest levels in the post-apartheid era. Fourth, the poor performance of state-owned enterprises is necessitating large-scale government support.

Recent developments since the tabling of the 2019/20 Budget in February 2019 have only made the situation worse. A downgrade of government debt to ‘junk’ by a third ratings agency will lead to an outflow of investment and exacerbate matters further. South Africa is, in fact, fortunate that this has not already happened.

The state of South Africa’s public finances is the outcome of different dynamics in three, overlapping periods. The first was the period after the 2008 global financial crisis. The second was the period under the continued presidency of Jacob Zuma. And the third has been the period since Zuma was succeeded by Cyril Ramaphosa. Careful consideration of these periods contradict widely-circulated claims in the political space.

Some have claimed that South Africa’s woes began with Zuma but this is not true. The first shock to the economy under public finances was the global financial crisis. Others have claimed that Zuma is not responsible for poor economic and public finance performance, but this is also not true. South African economic performance should have been able to recover to a much greater degree than it did under the era of his leadership. Government revenue collection seems to have been negatively affected by institutional destabilisation of the South African Revenue Service.

Finally, the deterioration of economic indicators (growth and employment), along with further underperformance of revenue collection and public finances more broadly, is being laid at the door of Ramaphosa’s presidency. That is simply implausible.

The deterioration can often be linked to factors that preceded Ramaphosa’s replacement of Zuma in early 2018. Admittedly, Ramaphosa has not helped his case by making promises about job creation, for instance, that may be outside the ability of the state to deliver.

Understanding why such claims are likely to be wrong is important not just because of attributing blame, but in order to understand what the fundamental drivers are behind the country’s current state and future trajectory.

Recycled disagreements

Unfortunately, beyond blame, much of the policy discussion is characterised by recycled disagreements. These date to the era in which the African National Congress (ANC) government adopted the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) strategy – which was opposed and resented by left-wing parts of the ANC alliance. That strategy was largely concerned with reducing the debt levels the new democratic government inherited from its apartheid predecessors.

For example, left-wing commentators have argued for expansionary fiscal policy. This basically means increasing government spending to a significant degree. They have also claimed that National Treasury implemented ‘austerity’ after 2008. This is incoherent. First, South Africa actually adopted a ‘countercyclical’ approach after 2008: government spending increased faster than revenue. That is how the country’s debt initially escalated.

Second, increasing government expenditure in the manner proposed is, at best, a very high risk strategy. With the country’s public finances already under strain, an increase in expenditure that does not deliver significant increases in economic growth and tax collection will lead to a dramatic deterioration in public finances. That could cause harm for generations to come. These risks, which seem more likely than the benefits, are never mentioned by populists who simply regurgitate arguments from earlier eras.

The reality is that even though Treasury attempted to maintain government spending to support the economy during the aftermath of the global financial crisis, and then attempted to stabilise debt levels using a policy of ‘fiscal consolidation’, it has been unable to do either. The economy has not recovered, arguably due in significant part to the ravages of state capture and other state failures in the Zuma era. Debt targets have been regularly missed. At one point national government debt was expected to stabilised below 45% of GDP, now it has gone above 60% and may reach 70% of GDP within a few years.

There is no consensus among economists or other public finance experts on a specific threshold that is tolerable. What is clear though is that the higher the amount of debt relative to the size of the economy, the greater the risk. This is especially true where economic growth is lacklustre, as it has been in South Africa for some years.

Recent developments have only made the situation more dire. In the 2019 Budget, Treasury indicated that it would have to breach its expenditure ceiling for the first time in order to give support to national power utility Eskom amounting to R23 billion per year for an intended 10 years. That was despite planned cuts to public service employment and additional tax measures.

Since then, Eskom was given a lower-than expected tariff increase by the National Energy Regulator (NERSA). National government has also tabled an additional proposal to give Eskom a further R59 billion over two years.

It seems unlikely that government will be able to cut such vast sums in other parts of the state, not least at such short notice, with the result that debt targets will be exceeded again. And despite the money being poured into Eskom, there is no clear indication of the overall plan to stabilise the utility’s finances.

Meanwhile various other risks, like South African Airways, the Road Accident Fund and medical negligence lawsuits, continue to linger in the background. Economic growth and job creation are virtually non-existent, and both are below population growth. This means a higher unemployment rate and less national wealth per person.

In the face of the crisis with Eskom, public finances and economic growth, the only way to proceed is to secure a societal agreement on the way forward that recognises the need for sacrifices in the face of the crisis. Ramaphosa is uniquely equipped to secure a ‘social compact’ of this kind. But he is moving too slowly. This may be due in part to incessant factional battles in the ANC and an unprecedented assault on Ramaphosa and close allies like Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan that is being conducted through the Office of the Public Protector.

The president is also heavily reliant on advisers, his Cabinet and senior government officials – few of whom have shown that they can deliver on such a weighty responsibility. But as others have noted: if the country fails to agree in time, decisions will be forced upon it. And under such dire circumstances there will be less opportunity to protect vulnerable citizens with the least to sacrifice.

Seán Mfundza Muller, Senior Lecturer in Economics and Research Associate at the Public and Environmental Economics Research Centre (PEERC), University of Johannesburg

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

South African probe into corruption awaits a star witness -- Jacob Zuma

Former South African President Jacob Zuma.
GCIS

It’s been almost a year since the Commission of Inquiry into allegations of state capture in South Africa began to hear testimony. Also known as the Zondo Commission, it is headed by Deputy Chief Justice Zondo Raymond, who has listened to 130 days of live testimony from more than 80 people. It is probing allegations that the government was captured by private business interests for their own benefit.

During it all, echoes of former South African President Jacob Zuma’s alleged involvement have become deafening. Through various testimony, Zuma has been directly implicated by current and former senior government officials and ministers. They have alleged, among other things, that Zuma leaned on them to help the Guptas – Zuma’s friends who are accused of having captured the state – and to fast-track a nuclear deal with Russia that would have bankrupted South Africa. Also, the governance failures that have resulted in the looting of parastatals, have been blamed squarely on state capture.

Zuma’s turn to give evidence has arrived. Not only does he deny that state capture exists – he’s called it a fake political tool – he’s also cast himself as a hapless victim.

Refusing to engage the concept, he said:

There are people who did things to others in one form or the other‚ and you can call it in any other name‚ not this big name “state capture”.

The allegations against him are that he orchestrated a network of corruption that hijacked South Africa’s developmental project.

The importance of Zuma testifying before the commission should not be underestimated. It will set a precedent that will either show that those that abuse power will be held to account or that the cycle of impunity will continue, reinforcing the unjust systems that enable state capture.

Understanding state capture

Originally, the theoretical concept of state capture referred to a form of grand corruption. In the case of South Africa, it can be defined as the formation of a shadow state, directed by a power elite. This shadow state operates within – and parallel to – the constitutional state in formal and informal ways. Its objective is to re-purpose state governance, aligning it with the power elites’ narrow financial or political interests, for their benefit.

State capture rests on a strategy to align arms of state and public institutions and business to support rent-seeking.

In the events being scrutinised by the commission, the evidence being led shows that actors made sure that all the conditions were created and processes lined up to extract more money than the actual goods and services cost as a way to enrich themselves.

This reveals the systemic nature of state capture. To be successful, it requires the deep cooperation and complicity of the highest office in the land to secure rents, hollow out accountability and maintain legitimacy.

The graphic below, by Robyn Foley, a senior researcher the Centre for Complex Systems in Transition at Stellenbosch University, outlines the alleged strategy of capturing state-owned enterprises, installing compliant officials, undermining the functional operation of government institutions and discrediting critical voices.

The graphic points to a presidency where state capture became syndicated within the state and rent-seeking. Capture is a radical departure from the norms and values upon which a democratic developmental state depends. Like most liberal democracies, South Africa’s constitution provides for checks and balances that are supposed to limit such abuses of power. When these checks are undermined, and the balancing forces are biased, the system becomes a reinforcing loop of bad behaviour, spiralling towards an oligarchic authoritarian state.

In other words, a silent coup.

How did we get here?

Zuma set his presidency on the ticket of state-sponsored development. This entailed using state-owned enterprise procurement, tighter state control and Black Economic Empowerment to realise what has been termed radical economic transformation.

But it was precisely within this agenda, and the governance arrangements that supported it, that seeds for state capture were sown. Tighter state control meant that the flows of information were controlled by only a few, while state-owned enterprises used the biggest share of procurement rands.

There was already billions moving through these state owned enterprises and radical economic transformation was the perfect ideology to bring it all together.

But black business hardly benefited at all from the profits of state capture. If radical economic transformation were to be effected through the constitutional state, it would be enacted through economic policy that supported livelihoods and employment creation. In addition, state capture has hollowed out the very institutions that would have been able to realise radical economic transformation through the constitutional state.

The unravelling

Numerous events over the past decade point to a slowburn abuse of key state resources. One of the first was the irregular landing of a civilian plane at Waterkloof Military Air Base in 2013. The plane was carrying foreign guests to a family wedding hosted by Zuma’s friends, the Gupta family.

Two years later evidence emerged that millions of rands of public funds had been used illegally for upgrades to the then president’s Nkandla homestead. This spending was outlined in a report prepared by the former Public Protector Thuli Madonsela.

The turning point came only months after the release of the Public Protector’s State of Capture report, when Zuma fired then Finance Minister, Pravin Gordhan and his deputy, Mcebisi Jonas in March 2017. The events sent a shock wave through South Africa, triggering mass protests and mobilised public outrage, forcing Zuma to initiate the robust inquiry into state capture.

Our unpublished research shows that, to date, there have been 28 public state capture investigations, inquiries and commissions. There are also 118 outstanding cases of corruption involving government officials and politicians in the intray of the newly appointed head of the country’s National Prosecuting Authority, Advocate, Shamila Batohi.

The true cost of the damage cost by state capture, including the destruction of institutions and lives, is unquantifiable.

South Africans may well be seduced by the prospect of Zuma taking the stand at the Zondo commission. But he was not alone in driving the state capture project. And, the network of actors and influencers is extensive and still very much active. This much has been laid bare in testimony before the commission.

Nina Callaghan, Robyn Foley, senior researchers at the Centre for Complex Systems in Transition at Stellenbosch University, contributed to the article.

Mark Swilling, Distinguished Professor of Sustainable Development, Stellenbosch University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

Land occupiers to take eThekwini Municipality to court for “criminal” act

Shack dwellers’ homes demolished and possessions burnt

Mafa Zwane shows the remains of his shack. and his bed after the Land Invasion Department demolished his home. Photo: Musa Binda

A week after the most recent demolitions, residents from Azania Occupation in Cato Manor, Durban, endured yet another round of demolitions on Thursday. This time, their belongings were torched by law enforcement. Beds, cupboards, blankets and clothes were burnt. About 70 shacks were demolished.

Most residents were away when the Land Invasion Department struck. They were at the Durban Magistrates Court to lend support to 24 people from the eKhenana Occupation who were charged with public violence after resisting demolitions last year.

Azania resident Mafa Zwane described what happened. “I overheard people screaming and when I walked out of the shack, I noticed that the contingent was already beating some residents, forcing them out of their shacks and demolishing them.”

Zwane used to work at the Sun Coast Casino and rented a flat in South Beach, but when he lost his job in February last year, he joined the occupation.

Gugu Sipamla was also at home when the Land Invasion Department and Metro law enforcement arrived. She said she ran away, afraid of being beaten or shot with rubber bullets.

Sipamla said all her belongings were burnt. She didn’t know where she would now sleep. She has sent her sons, aged four and 13, to stay with a friend. She moved to Azania in February after she lost her job and could no longer afford to pay her rent.

Provincial secretary for the shack dweller movement Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM), Mqapheli Bonono, said: “What is being done by eThekwini Municipality is against the law and we view it as criminal activity because they don’t only demolish shacks, they steal people’s belongings, beat them up, shoot them with rubber bullets. It worries us when they even decide to burn people’s belongings.”

Bonono said AbM was preparing court action.

Durban Metro Police spokesperson Superintendent Parboo Sewpersad said, “We get called by Land Invasion Department security management only if the crowd becomes volatile; only then we come for backup.”

EThekwini Municipality was not immediately available for comment.

 14 June 2019   By Musa Binda

© 2019 GroundUp.

Bad economic news increases suicide rates – new research

Negative announcements, such as high unemployment rates, rapidly rising prices, and increasing business failures can have an impact on mental well-being.
shutterstock

A slowdown in the economy, job losses, business closures, increasing energy bills: it’s not surprising that relentless negative reporting of economic downturns is impacting people’s emotional health.

Our new research shows that these types of messages can seriously impact people’s mental well-being. And that when indicators of national economic performance are poor there is typically an associated rise in the suicide rate.

It’s already well known that suicide rates increase in times of economic strife and uncertainty. Previous research estimates that the 2007 economic crisis in Europe and North America led to more than 10,000 extra suicides. And findings from last year show that suicides increase both in years of significant stock index decline and in the year that follows it.

Austerity measures such as welfare and health spending cuts have also been identified as the cause of “spikes in suicide rates” among certain demographic groups. There is also evidence that a country’s suicide rate is associated with its maturity or stage of economic development (growth) – with increasing male suicide rates in even the most prosperous developed countries. This suggests that the path taken to increase income over time has negative mental health effects on countries.

Sentiment and suicide

In our latest study, we used data from the US that took into account the 2007 financial crash and global financial crisis. We explored how such economic factors translate into higher suicide rates. Departing from earlier studies on this topic we explicitly considered “consumer sentiment” –- this is the emotional way in which people perceive their economic situation to unfold, such as expecting to lose their job. We used the Consumer Sentiment Index to measure people’s perceptions of their financial situation and the economy in general.

We found a strong correlation between the way in which people view their economic situation and the average suicide rate. So the more negatively people view their prospects, the higher the likelihood of suicide. The data showed how the average suicide rate increased significantly in the aftermath of the financial crisis for all sex and age groups – though this effect was found to be stronger for females than males.

The average suicide rate increased significantly in the aftermath of the financial crisis.
Shutterstock

Our findings suggest that consumer sentiment plays a significantly greater role in explaining variations in the suicide rate compared to traditional indicators such as income and employment figures. So it would make sense that constant negative announcements – such as high unemployment, rapidly rising prices, and increasing business failures – can have an impact on mental well-being. Ultimately, these relentless messages depress consumer sentiment and raises suicide rates.

Our statistical work, however, also shows that a 10% increase in the Consumer Sentiment Index reduces suicide rates by 1%. So the results show that a more positive outlook on personal finance and the economy in general can actually reduce suicide rates.

Reporting the facts

We also tested the impact of increased spending in mental health provision in the US and found no evidence to suggest it lowers suicide rates. This is likely due to other public spending categories, such as in education and employment, being even more important to mental well-being than state level mental health spending.

Clearly, it is incumbent on news media to report honestly and frankly on the state of the economy. Yet rarely is consumer sentiment explicitly recognised as contributing to potentially serious mental health issues.

So in the same way that many media outlets aim for sensitive coverage of terrorism, gun crime and natural disasters to avoid unwanted panic, responsible media communication of issues relating to the economy should also be considered. This could offer balanced reporting that is mindful of mental health and well-being.

Rarely is it reported in economic news coverage, for example, that downturns are always followed by upturns. Cyclical patterns in economic performance are perfectly normal and to be expected. And in this sense, they can be good times to exploit training and education opportunities in advance of the next upturn.

This is particularly important given that uncertainty surrounding the UK’s future is already having worrying effects on people’s mental health – with ministers being told to prepare for a rise in suicide in the event of a chaotic no-deal Brexit.

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In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or at jo@samaritans.org. Other similar international helplines can be found here.

Alan Collins, Professor of Economics and Public Policy, Nottingham Trent University and Adam Cox, Principal Lecturer, University of Portsmouth

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

Getting poorer while working harder: The 'cliff effect'

Average Walmart workers make twice the federal minimum wage but may still qualify for public benefits.
AP Photo/Mark Lennihan

Forty percent of all working-age Americans sometimes struggle to pay their monthly bills.

There is no place in the country where a family supported by one minimum-wage worker with a full-time job can live and afford a 2-bedroom apartment at the average fair-market rent.

Given the pressure to earn enough to make ends meet, you would think that low-paid workers would be clamoring for raises. But this is not always the case.

Because so many American jobs don’t earn enough to pay for food, housing and other basic needs, many low-wage workers rely on public benefits that are only available to people in need, such as housing vouchers and Medicaid, to pay their bills.

Earning a little more money may not automatically increase their standard of living if it boosts their income to the point where they lose access to some or all of those benefits. That’s because the value of those lost benefits may outweigh their income gains.

I have researched this dynamic, which experts often call the “cliff effect,” for years to learn why workers weren’t succeeding at retaining their jobs following job training programs. Chief among the one step forward, two steps back problems the cliff effect causes: Low-paid workers can become reluctant to earn more money due to a fear that they will get worse off instead of better.

Trapped

“My supervisor wants to promote me,” a woman who gets housing assistance through the federal Section 8 housing voucher program, who I’ll call Josie, told me. “If my pay goes up, my rent will go up too. I don’t know if I’ll be able to afford my apartment,” Josie, a secretary at a Boston hospital, said.

These vouchers are available to Americans facing economic hardship, based on multiple criteria, including their income. Josie was worried that the bump up in pay that she’d get from the promotion would not make up for the loss of help she gets to pay her rent.

Given the possibility of a downside, many Americans in this situation decide it’s better to decline what on the surface looks like a good opportunity to escape poverty.

This uncertainty leads workers like Josie to forgo raises rather than take the risk of getting poorer while working harder. Having to stress out about potentially losing benefits that keep a roof over their heads and food on their table prolongs their own financial instability.

The pain isn’t just personal. Josie’s whole family misses out if she passes on an opportunity to earn more. The government loses a chance to stop using taxpayer dollars to cover benefits to someone who might not otherwise need them. The hospital can’t take full advantage of Josie’s proven talents.

Not always

Some low-paid workers do get farther behind when they should be getting ahead following a raise. But getting higher pay doesn’t always make anyone worse off. Whether it does or not depends on a lot of intersecting factors, like the local cost of living, the size of the raise, the size of the family and the benefits the worker receives.

The cliff effect is something social workers see their clients encounter all the time. And it’s maddeningly impossible to figure out for the people experiencing it and researchers like me alike.

Some benefits, notably the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the nation’s largest program designed to alleviate hunger, do include some incentives for recipients to earn more. SNAP, as today’s version of food stamps is known, tapers its phaseout for eligibility as incomes grow, rather than rendering people ineligible as soon as their pay crosses a single threshold.

But low-wage workers, such as those in food service, hospitality and retail have no way of knowing what to expect if they get SNAP benefits in combination with other government programs, such as housing vouchers and Medicaid.

At the heart of this problem is that the help millions Americans derive from the nation’s safety net comes from a fragmented system. Sorting out the repercussions of a higher income is nearly impossible because the safety net consists of a wide array of benefits programs administered by federal, state and local agencies. Each program and administrator has its own criteria, rules and restrictions.

Because that trepidation is sometimes unfounded, my colleagues at Project Hope Boston, a multi-service agency focused on moving the city’s families up and out of poverty, and I started to do something about it.

Fixing it

To help families assess risks tied to the cliff effect, we advised the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance, which oversees state-administered safety net programs, to create a digital tool. Social workers are already using a preliminary version of it to show low-wage workers what they can probably expect to happen to their benefits if they earn more money.

You have to consider a lot of variables to see whether someone will experience the cliff effect.
Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance, CC BY-ND

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts plans to put this tool online for all to use by Summer of 2019.

After plugging information about variables like how many members are in the household, what benefits everyone receives, the costs of their regular expenses like rent, child care and medical bills, they become better able to make informed choices about their career opportunity based on their family’s personal financial situation.

But workers need more than just a tool, they need help getting over the cliff. We also help workforce development programs implement the state’s new Learn to Earn initiative, which gives low-income families the financial coaching they need to make educated decisions that could affect their bottom line.

This problem is becoming increasingly urgent because dozens of states, cities and counties are enforcing higher minimum wages, and employers are voluntarily raising pay as well, including Target and Amazon. Some places, including Massachusetts and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul in Minnesota, are even phasing in $15-an-hour minimums.

But the reality is that even after some of the biggest minimum wage increases enacted at the state level lately, many families are not earning enough to pay for housing and other basic needs without help – for which they may no longer qualify. Several states, including Colorado and Florida, are seeking solutions.

This complicated and frustrating challenge is just one symptom of an overarching problem. In addition to boosting wages, it will take major policy changes, like making child care more universally available and affordable, to offset the skyrocketing costs of living for American workers.

Susan R. Crandall, Director, Center for Social Policy, University of Massachusetts Boston

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Employed but still poor: the state of low-wage working poverty in South Africa

Low-wage poverty is highly associated with unstable work such as in the informal sector.
Shutterstock

Paid employment is generally considered the predominant and most sustainable way of pulling people out of poverty. But the past two decades have seen a global rise in the complex phenomenon of the working poor. South Africa is no exception.

This delink between paid employment and poverty reduction is a major challenge for the government. It means that attention must be given to two things: rapid job creation, and also the creation of decent jobs.

While one may think that being employed suggests the person is immediately pulled out of poverty, this is not always the case. Finding a job does not guarantee someone will receive remuneration that is high enough to cover their basic needs and be relatively secure financially. In some cases, workers reluctantly only work part-time after failing to find full-time work.

Some workers are paid wages below the amount that’s necessary to maintain a decent living standard. They are also not entitled to health or retirement benefits. Low-wage work is also associated with poor working conditions and job insecurity. These include poor health and safety standards, discrimination and excessive work hours.

In other words, for some workers employment no longer guarantees significant poverty reduction. Some workers remain poor because wages are too low to lift them and their families out of poverty.

Main findings

Comprehensive information on the extent of low-wage working poverty in South Africa wasn’t available until our recently published study. We examined the data from the first four waves of the National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS), which took place between 2008 and 2015. NIDS is South Africa’s first national household panel study.

We found that while low-wage poverty probability declined during the 7-year period, in 2015 nearly 20% of workers were still identified as low-wage poor employed. This downward trend is similar to what was found by a 2015 study for the 1997-2012 period, though that piece of research focused on working poverty and didn’t take the low wage threshold into consideration.

When it comes to demographics, low-wage poor were identified as predominantly women (slightly above 50%), Africans (90%), 38 years old on average, without 12 years of education. On average there were five members per household, and two of them were working.

Most low-wage poor were involved in elementary occupations. They were street vendors, domestic helpers and cleaners, and garbage collectors. And nearly 75% of this group were in the informal sector, which is associated with a lack of job security and benefits. This finding is concerning, given the fact that the informal sector only contributes about 7% of the country’s GDP.

What should government do?

There are ways for the government to address these issues.

Policy is a key area where changes can be made. The government should focus on policy that provides affordable quality education and skills training to previously disadvantaged communities. Moreover, education and training programmes should focus on skills and competencies demanded by the labour market.

Low-wage poverty is highly associated with the unstable work environments and insecurity that are experienced by workers in the informal sector, and workers with low-skilled occupations like domestic workers and street vendors. Policy prescriptions should therefore aim to promote economic growth and infrastructure development within the informal sector. They should also focus on increasing awareness and enforcement of labour regulations that protect workers in low-skilled or elementary occupations.

Speedy infrastructure development also helps to pave the way for the creation of more and better jobs associated with higher wages and improved working conditions.

It’s also important that there’s a focus on creating quality jobs and transforming existing unstable, low-paying jobs to more stable work environments that pay workers higher earnings. This involves improving the transition of workers from the informal to the formal sectors.

Government and the private sector should also provide small and informal business owners with easy access to financial and organisational support. These business owners need skills and knowledge about everything from finances to supply chain processes and customer management to help them run and grow their businesses.

There should also be an increase in the awareness of minimum statutory employment conditions among elementary occupation workers and employers, together with the implementation of effective mechanisms to monitor and enforce compliance.

Last but not least, increasing the national minimum wage for all sectors may be a useful, if somewhat contentious approach. Using the currently proposed minimum wage of R3 500 per month, the low-wage poverty rate is somewhat higher (35% in 2008 and 24% in 2015, compared to 26% and 19% respectively using the original lower-amount threshold adopted in the study).

Some workers argue they cannot meet their basic needs with the currently proposed minimum wage (of R3 500 per month). But a higher minimum wage helps improving their productivity and turnover. On the other hand, some employers claim they cannot afford an increased minimum wage without running the risk of retrenching workers and replacing them with cheaper capital. In this case, the state may intervene by assisting firms with special taxation benefits, wage subsidies and training opportunities for workers.

This is an extract from the journal article titled “Employed yet poor: low-wage employment and working poverty in South Africa”, which the writer co-authored with Jade Feder, an Economics Masters graduate at the University of the Western Cape.

Derek Yu, Associate Professor, Economics, University of the Western Cape

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

Tired of waiting for water, Ebaleni residents say they won’t vote

“How can I cast my vote when I’m sharing stream water with dogs and cows?”

Mabongi Ngcobo and Zwelihle Zimu at the stream where they fetch water. Photo: Nompendulo Ngubane

“How can I cast my vote when I’m still sharing stream water with dogs and cows?” asks Zwelihle Zimu.

He is one of the residents of Sweetwaters in Ebaleni in Pietermaritzburg who fetch water from a nearby stream. There are no communal taps and the water tanker comes only once a week, says Zimu.

“We fetch water from a stream in the bushes. Some of the dogs swim in that stream. Cows and goats drink from the same stream. The water is dirty. We have no choice but to use the same water.”

In winter, he says, when darkness falls early, it is dangerous to walk to the stream.

When GroundUp visited the stream, which residents call “Emhosheni”, a dog was in the water, drinking.

The stream is shared with animals. Photo: Nompendulo Ngubane

Zimu says some residents buy water from a house in Zayeka, some distance away.
A 20 litre container costs R25, he says.

He takes his car and brings back eight containers which lasts him four days. But others do not have money or transport, he says.

Maboni Ngcobo says neighbours living higher up throw rubbish into the stream. “Sometimes we have to clean up that rubbish and wait hours for the water to clear before using it.”

“The one water tanker is not helping. Some of us are not always at home when it arrives. The only way we are able to get water is from the stream,” said Ngcobo.

She says she is not going to cast her vote.

“It has been over 20 years. We have raised the issue with the ward councillor. He is aware but nothing has been done. I’ve been voting all these years hoping for change. I’m not going to waste my time,” Ngcobo says.

Ward councillor Linda Madlala (ANC) said he had raised the matter with Msunduzi municipality. The municipality had been placed under administration, he said, but there was a plan to put in standpipes and rain tanks and eventually bring piped water to the area.

“No human being deserves to drink water with animals. We need access to clean water,” said resident Mandla Gumede.

 7 May 2019   By Nompendulo Ngubane
 © 2019 GroundUp.

Race still colours South Africa's politics 25 years after apartheid's end

African National Congress supporters at the party’s manifesto launch.
Epa/Kim Ludbrook

It would be surprising if race played no part in South African elections. The country’s colonial and apartheid past ranked alongside the America’s Deep South as among the most racist social orders in the world. If religious polarisation is also considered, South Africa often compared with Northern Ireland and the Israel-Palestine conflict.

The slogan “rainbow nation” seems to have retired along with Anglican archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu. Personal racist incidents still make the headlines and class remains hued by colour at the structural level. Although slightly over half of the country’s middle class is now black, deep poverty is an almost exclusively a black experience.

Race continues to divide. Take just the best-known parties among the four dozen contesting the country’s general election this month. They all represent radically different perspectives on the race issue. And – at the extremes – there is no crossing the colour line.

For example, almost no black Africans will vote for the minority Freedom Front Plus. Almost no whites will vote for the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), the third-largest party. Strident racial rhetoric from some EFF leaders. And its election manifesto envisages for massive tax rises, a proviso that’s alienated white voters. For its part, the Freedom Front Plus’s campaign to defend minorities against affirmative action and black economic empowerment doesn’t attract many black voters.

But, when moving towards the leading parties of the centre, the governing African National Congress (ANC), and the official opposition, the Democratic Alliance (DA), are making serious efforts to reign in racial rhetoric among their leaders and members. They also have manifestos that promote non-racialism.

Non-racialism

The ANC and DA documents and speeches have repeated their long-held goals of non-racialism. Both try to ensure that people of all colours are represented in their executive structures.

Recently, ANC veterans condemned a statement by their powerful secretary-general urging a vote against “whites” and for “blacks”. And the party’s election campaign, particularly in Gauteng and the Western Cape, chooses issues and rhetoric which include white voters.

The DA too has more than once disciplined leaders, or got members to resign, because of racial comments on twitter or elsewhere

At a deeper level, the DA is attempting a strategy so difficult that it has only been accomplished twice before in South Africa’s history. The party seeks to change from an overwhelmingly white party to a predominantly black party. The South African Communist Party achieved this during the 1920s. The Liberal Party followed a similar path during the 1960s.

Historically, the ANC’s Freedom Charter affirmed that

South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white.

The ANC’s alliances from the 1950s included organisations centred on coloured – people of both European (white) and African (black) ancestry - , Indian, and white members. It incrementally opened its own membership to supporters of all colours before 1990.

At times, a few commentators have criticised the ANC as being dominated by either isiXhosa speakers or Nguni language speakers, but these complaints found little traction. The ANC’s membership embraced a nation-wide representivity among black Africans, and included activists from all of the race-based definitions entrenched during apartheid.

Strategically, the ANC is the only African nationalist party that has had to accommodate – in policy and rhetoric – a significant white minority.

More than nine-tenths of white settlers fled Algeria after independence in 1962; the same in Angola and Mozambique following independence in 1974. This also happened in Zimbabwe between the 1980s-1990s. White Algerians had the right to French citizenship; white Angolans and Mozambicans had the right to Portuguese citizenship. Over half White Zimbabweans had the right to either South African or British citizenship.

By contrast, the overwhelming majority of white South Africans have no rights to other citizenships.

The people

White South Africans are only make up 7,8% of the population. But they remain strategically important. They still own most capital and most companies. They constitute a significant proportion of management and in most of the professions.

The western powers, investors, and media remain sensitive to their concerns and anxieties.

Interestingly, statistics show that white living standards have risen higher than anyone else’s since 1994. That is not exactly the “genocide” proclaimed by the global alt-right.

There is a wide range of black views on colour and race relations. Some activists in the Rhodes-must-fall and Fees-must-fall movements expressed total alienation from whites and “whiteness”. Simultaneously, there are many interracial friendships and some interracial marriages.

Tensions bound to remain

The world’s oldest democracy, the US, and the world’s largest democracy, India, also have to grapple with the contradictions between nonracial or non-caste ideals in their constitutions, and affirmative action and preferential procurement laws and regulations.

In South Africa, similar issues continue to be addressed by a host of institutions. These range from the Human Rights Commission, to the Equality Court and similar quasi-judicial entities, in addition to test cases decided by the Constitutional Court..

Given that the country has the world’s largest white minority living under black rule, colour line tensions will remain a fairly permanent feature of the country’s political landscape. The same can be said of the US, where the world’s largest black minority lives under white rule.

Keith Gottschalk, Political Scientist, University of the Western Cape

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.