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Enough is enough

NOTHING can cause more anguish than the death of your own child.

NOTHING can cause more anguish than the death of your own child.

Many parents who have experienced such a loss say it is worse than the proverbial knife piercing through your heart.

It is more heart-wrenching if a child who is on the straight and narrow is forced to commit suicide because officialdom made it well nigh impossible for that child to try and make ends meet, if not to barely survive.

Tragically this is the story we published about 20-year-old Douglas Skhumbuzo Mthembu on Friday. In a letter to his family Mthembu told how a home affairs official tore up his application forms for an ID "because he was a foreigner".

Mthembu had been struggling to find a job for months and stated "I'd rather die than steal".

Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma cried at Mthembu's funeral service.

To us, it was one death too many. To us, this must be the turning point in that Department of Home Bungling.

To us, the time is now for the minister to put into action the countless promises to deliver.

Indeed, it is time for the entire government to physically look out for cheating, under-performing and arrogant civil officials and show them the door.

Equally condemned is the so-called civil servant who is indirectly implicated in the death of Mthembu.

The hands of the government and every civil servant are dripping with the blood of this innocent, well-meaning young man.

We will never stop asking about this official until he or she is named and shamed.

Enough is enough.

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