His shirt embroidered with the logo of a fast-moving consumer goods company, * Nokuthula’s mutilated body and neck marked with strangle marks were found in a field by a passerby, shortly after he was killed. Nokuthula usually walks 7km from home to the main taxi in Katlehong, to his workplace.
He left about two weeks ago, but never made it to his place of work. The Nokuthula are among the most economically vulnerable groups in South Africa. His tragic collision with death came just two weeks before the release of grim figures by Statistics South Africa on unemployment. This was preceded by the release of crime statistics by the South African Police Service, confirming an increase in contact crime by 11.6%, including murder and sexual offences. Nokuthula is a stark illustration of how institutional failure harms millions of black women.
“Unemployment among African women remains over 50%”. This title will not attract readers and listeners in the mainstream media, because society has normalized the plight of black women in poverty, unemployment, gender-based violence and other socio-economic conditions. The headline news from Stats SA data shows that the unemployment rate fell to 32.7% in the fourth quarter of 2022.
The unemployment rate according to the expanded definition of unemployment, which includes those who have stopped looking for work, decreased by 0.5 of a percentage point to 42.6% in the fourth quarter of 2022.
We have become accustomed to the “quarter to quarter game of numbers” without disaggregating the statistics and knowing the people who made the numbers. This cosmetic fact by economists and statisticians makes us ignorant of the origins of the deep dysfunction that characterizes the country. Nokuthula’s tragic killing is a reminder of those who are robbed of the reality behind the facade of statistics. Let’s disaggregate these statistics using Nokuthula’s previous death.
The first failure was local government. This episode is the most perverse demonstration of how a hollow state affects our daily lives.
The route that Nokuthula took and where he met his fate is one of the legacies of the failure of the 2010 World Cup. This is the framework of what used to be a football field. Now overgrown with grass and bushes, it is a hazard that has been a complaint of residents to the municipality for many years. It is an eroded parasitic state. The local government is expected to deliver services but cannot cut the grass because the supply chain process is damaged by corruption and obstacles by the internal politics of outsourcing. The chairman of the South African Communist party, Blade Nzimande, coined the term tenderpreneurship to describe this practice. This simple service will ensure visibility on the Nokuthula route.
The second failure is the power outages that have become an abnormal norm. The failure of Eskom has had a profound effect on crime in humanity. Risking his life, Nokuthula started his journey by walking in the morning and relying on street lights. His killing coincided with a reduction in the workload at a time that ignored workers who started the day before 6 am.
The third failure is the rail infrastructure. Nokuthula walked from the house to the taxi station, while not long ago a train passed through the area. This allows many like him to take the train, which is more affordable than a taxi, to commute to industrial areas such as Wadeville, Isando, Germiston and Cleveland. Obviously as unpaid workers, as many are in the fast-moving goods sector, working-class people risk their lives to reduce transport costs. Catching a local taxi to the main taxi rank will eat away from the wages that have been going on for a long time.
Another failure is the inability to contain inflation. Wages in South Africa do not meet the cost of living. Many like Nokuthula have to find ways to cut costs in order to survive in the currents of capitalism. While the Competition Commission has worked hard to expose cartel companies responsible for price fixing and overcharging in the food sector, this is not reflected in food prices. So it’s a compliance exercise where companies can pay, pay fines and recover costs from consumers’ pockets.
The fact that Eskom also increases inflation. With food and transport costs rising, Nokuthula ended up taking this risky route to work.
Then again, what is the value of Nokuthula’s life in the mainstream economy? Millions like him are eking out a living in the second economy, as former president Thabo Mbeki once called it. The economy of the survivalists, feeding off the scattered morsels of the first economy. Nokuthula’s preventable death reflects the impudence of politicians, tenderpreneurs and companies who use the corruption template of the previous regime. It shows how infrastructural and institutional failures are ruining the lives of millions of people, now passively normalized.
Nokuthula’s death is a reflection of the consequences of a failed state, a parasitic government drowning in a whirlwind of governance and ethical erosion. The story shows that most black women looking for work also find themselves in precarious situations. This makes a mockery of the ANC’s theory of strategy and tactics. – that black working-class women should be the main motive for change as the three oppressed people based on race, class and gender. But here we are looking back at 30 years of democratic dispensation with “no longer alarming figures” showing that more than 50% of black women remain unemployed.
Sara Smit, in the column of February 22, 2023 at Mail & Guardians, entitled “Jobs, dreams and why we should care”, underlines the survivalist conundrum caused by the economic crisis that robs humanity of its ethos. He said, “The economic crisis in South Africa has robbed us of not only jobs. It has also limited the depth of dreams and reduced capacity for care. These are two underestimated elements of the economy, which should influence labor-related reforms.
Who cares about Nokuthula’s suffering and inhumanity? They can be replaced, and a new shirt with an embroidered logo is waiting for another new worker to continue production.
* This is a pseudonym.
Gugu Ndima is a social commentator.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect official policy or position Mail & Guardians.