South Africa’s government has dropped plans for taxpayers to pick up ministers’ water and electricity bills, after public outcry and ongoing anger at faltering utility supplies.
Cyril Ramaphosa, the president, backtracked on the new perks for ministers and deputy ministers after admitting he had taken on board widespread outrage.
News of the perks landed as the country battles inflation approaching eight per cent and the lethargic economy struggles to recover from strict Covid lockdowns.
Meanwhile the decrepit national grid is enduring its longest ever stretch of daily power outages and swathes of Johannesburg, including affluent suburbs, have been without running water.
Water shortages hit hospitals especially hard. Earlier this month, staff at two major facilities complained of filthy conditions and warned of potential infection outbreaks after taps ran dry.
Photographs sent to the media showed blocked toilets and bloodied operating rooms that could not be cleaned. At one point, staff were reportedly instructed to bring in water so toilets could be flushed.
“Hygiene is terrible without water, as you can imagine, and the toilet situation is disgusting,” one doctor said at the time.
The hospitals now say they have sufficient water, but are still reliant on water tankers for their supply.
The outages were caused by a combination of high consumption during hot weather, leaky pipes and power cuts affecting pumping stations.
Anger over perks grow
“It was such a shock, we woke up one day and there was no water from our taps,” Shanon Zoghby from Greymont told TimesLive. “This went on for three days and we had to make a plan and see how to get on with our lives without water from our taps. There were no water tankers provided. We had to devise our own plans to make sure we get by.”
The freebies for senior government figures were disclosed earlier this month against this backdrop, in an updated copy of the ministerial handbook. The draft also included provision of extra personal staff for ministers, including “food aides” and “household aides”.
As anger over the perks grew, the presidency announced the new handbook would first be reviewed and then announced it would be withdrawn.
“President Ramaphosa acknowledges and appreciates the public sentiments on the matter,” said his spokesman, Vincent Magwenya. “However, the impression created that the amendments were conducted in secret to avoid public scrutiny is false.”
The government has argued the measures were needed to help ministers bear the costs of running both private and official residences.
“With hindsight, the intention behind the amendment was not a nefarious one. The intention was to try to find some form of balance between what ministers could afford to pay vs some of the costs they have,” Mr Magwenya said.
At the same time on Tuesday the beleaguered state energy provider, Eskom, announced renewed rolling blackouts just as weeks of national power cuts appeared to be subsiding.
Power interruptions, which have closed shops and factories, contributed to the economy shrinking in the second quarter, economists have said.
Mr Magwenya said as he announced the withdrawal of the handbook: “Let us accept the public has given us a message and let us conduct a necessary review that will ensure the next version of the guide is aligned not only to public expectations but to the realities many South Africans face.”
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