[imagesource: Freddy Mavunda]

South Africa, we are back in the deep, deep mud.

A third COVID-19 wave is currently tearing through Gauteng, and some of the headlines are legitimately terrifying.

Doctors are speaking of a “tsunami”, with one going as far as to say that “reversing this runaway train is going to be almost impossible”.

Professor Francois Venter calls it “an absolute catastrophe“, and a look at the latest data shows that nearly 60% of the past week’s estimated excess deaths across South Africa were in Gauteng.

If you’re not taking this seriously, especially in Gauteng, you’re not paying attention.

The dire conditions in the province are worsened by the continued closure of the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital, which was gutted by a fire more than two months ago.

R40 million worth of medical consumables were destroyed during the blaze at Africa’s second-biggest hospital, and it’s also led to a dire shortage of hospital beds in the province.

The delay in reopening is due in large part to bureaucratic incompetence, with the issuing of fire certificates and other occupational health and safety certification dragging on.

Due to missing floor plans, the provincial department of infrastructure development cannot obtain the necessary documentation.

Here’s New Frame:

The Department of Health repeatedly avoided questions about whether it is taking any extra steps to avert the crisis its clinicians have outlined.

Regarding whether or not anything is being done to hold Charlotte Maxeke’s chief executive, Gladys Bogoshi, accountable for the ongoing closure, the department’s spokesperson, Kwara Kekana, said “investigations into the fire have not been concluded”.

The hospital was renamed in 2016, to honour Maxeke, a liberation struggle hero and welfare worker of the early 20th century.

To really rub salt in the wounds, our government declared this year, 2021, to be the “Year of Charlotte Mannya Maxeke”.

Meanwhile, the hospital sits largely idle, as COVID-19 wreaks havoc in the province, and doctors are forced to decide which patients to try and save and which to let die.

In his latest cartoon, published in The Dail Maverick, Zapiro went to town:

As always, our government has talked a good game, but failed to deliver when it matters most.

Here we are, our most vulnerable citizens sick and dying, and money is just disappearing left, right, and centre.

Earlier in the week, Auditor-General (AG) Tsakani Maluleke announced that “nobody really knows what happened to about R5,5 billion in funds that flowed through 22 of South Africa’s worst-run municipalities in a year.”

Just vanished, as if by magic.

Over the past decade, R186 billion disappeared out of the accounts of South African municipalities because of irregular expenditure.

Now we are told that budget constraints are stopping provincial health departments from vaccinating people over weekends, by the same health department that paid millions to Health Minister Zweli Mkhize’s pals over at Digital Vibes.

How much does a cartoon cow cost? More like cash cow.

Imagine being the mayor of an unnamed Eastern Cape municipality, driving around in a new car bought with funds allocated for COVID-19 relief.

It’s never-ending, and that above just scratches the surface of the moral vacuum this country is subjected to, week in and week out.

At some point in the next few days, President Ramaphosa will likely hold another ‘family meeting’, and we’ll be told off like naughty schoolchildren and hit with stricter lockdown measures.

He’ll then turn and walk away from the podium, without fielding a single question about the daily failings of the party he governs.

[sources:newframe&dailymaverick]