Austerity Kills

The following screenshot explains what is statistics South Africa (StatsSA)  

. It's major publications are the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) that was recently published, the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the census that usually done every five years and many others. All this shows that this institution is key for any policy planning. 

. Austerity. When government starts to adopt such policies. It shows that the government is worried about its expenditure getting out of control hence the need to apply cuts there and there. South Africa like any other country that has chosen to follow a scientific based response to corona is busy with implementing austerity. For example, there's are strong miscommunication of whether the Nationa Student Financial Aid Scheme is discontinuing the funding of the teaching degree and other degrees. When the government debt is seen to be out of control things like sovereign debt crisis are always raised. Countries like Greece are perfect examples of what is a debt crisis. As we later discovered the Greece crisis  was not due to Greece being unable to pay but due to Greece not having enough foreign reserves to pay of foreign debt. When government debt gets out of control an ordinary person is always told about how an unborn child will have to pay the huge debt a country owes. This is also one of the reason why governments can also be motivated apply austerity. For the South African case though, we far from the Greece situation since most of our debt is in our own currency.

StatsSA is an institution that is used by policy makers to take life changing decisions. Foreign and domestic investors look at StatsSA now and then for them to take any decisions. In addition, the institution hires alot of data collectors,  actuaries and statisticians. In which if austerity is applied we talking about wrong policy being implemented, investor decisions being wrong and an increase in our unemployment due to employees working under the institution being layed of or experiencing pay cuts. The dangers of all this is that with limited data it is easy to manipulate or issue out biased data. This manipulation is the concern of most critical South Africans.

Unless we move away from neoliberal thinking. We need to take time and look at party policies and cross of all those that are pro neoliberalism. The sixth parliament is so adamant in its austerity. Institutions  like the the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) are feeling the pressure of drastic measures being taken by the government. All signs are there that we are slowly turning towards a failed state. That's a scary thought, but it is one we must think about if we cannot directly come up with policy that deals with unemployment, poverty and inequality. 

All is not lost, with alternative policy that is on the rise. Our last hope is with Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). Great to see that Floyd Shivambu is still clear on alternative policy. But for me it takes only a voter who is conscious about party policy implications when voting for change to happen. Never be shy to share reading material and do political ground work to educate the masses. It is our only way out. The need to organise is now or never. 

In short, we should be opposing each and every policy that aims to apply austerity. The need to invest time reading to understand how government is planning to cut it's expenditure is very important. Institutions like NSFAS, CCMA and StatsSA don't need to be sabotaged by government. It remains with the voter to take a conscious decision when voting. All in all oppose austerity. As austerity kills.