To talk and not act is useless. It's been almost a month since the public service strike began and no solution has yet been found.

To talk and not act is useless. It's been almost a month since the public service strike began and no solution has yet been found.

The negotiators enjoy elevated platforms but they don't deliver results. Wage increments for public servants should have been resolved last year before they got dragged into the public domain.

The social costs of this strike could be high. The time lost by learners, though valuable, can be recovered somehow, either by instituting weekend schooling or cancelling school holidays.

But for babies who missed their immunisation shots, it is only a matter of time before they suffer from life-threatening illnesses such as polio.

Recently, I visited a local clinic where babies were to be immunised but none were because the clinic had run out of medicine and deliveries had been interrupted by the strike.

As for recipients of Aids drugs, only faith keeps them going.

The government claims it cannot afford what its workers are demanding yet we hear of huge amounts of state funds being wasted on projects such as renovating boardrooms by Gauteng's health MEC.

Money has been wasted on feeding corruption through the arms deal, Travelgate and oil deals by incompetent leaders.

Phillimon Mnisi

Johannesburg