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Naught for your comfort

Can you believe it? Young Thabo Mafolako was forced to languish in hospital for four days because his family cannot afford R10 for a taxi ride home.

Can you believe it? Young Thabo Mafolako was forced to languish in hospital for four days because his family cannot afford R10 for a taxi ride home.

This in the second decade of black majority rule that promised to lift the poor out of poverty and provide them with housing, security and comfort.

Who can blame the Mafolakos of this world for wondering whether they too have a stake in and should cherish the economic boom that economic, business, government and other full-bellied talking heads make such a song and dance about?

How do Zola Skweyiya and his fatcats in the national and provincial social welfare departments sleep at night while millions of empty stomachs rumble for a morsel to keep body and soul together?

Is Premier Edna Molewa even aware of the boulevards of broken dreams in her own back yard such as Bodibe village, where Thabo's father has to provide for his ill son, a mentally disabled wife and child, and three other children without government assistance?

As for the doctors at Thusong Hospital, they should hang their heads in shame for sending the ill teenager home instead of doing all they could to establish the cause of his bloated tummy.

The least said about Home Affairs, whose legendary incompetence continues to ensure thousands of poor people cannot receive their grants, the better.

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