THULI MADONSELA: Seize the moment to address inequality

It is said that when you hit rock bottom, the only way left for you to go is up. If this is such a moment for our country because of Covid-19, we must treat it as a wake-up call, and address the structural inefficiencies and injustices in our society.

You’d have to agree that SA is pretty close to rock bottom. This was clear when Moody’s downgraded SA’s sovereign rating to junk status two weeks ago and the rand tanked.

I must admit that until economists gave us the lowdown on the implications of the downgrade, I didn’t realise the result would go beyond just borrowing at high interest. It also heightens the risk of capital flight from government bonds and a run on the rand.

It didn’t help that this took place while SA was in lockdown to arrest Covid-19’s spread, which had already heightened the climate of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambivalence. The virus hit SA’s economy when it was already in intensive care.

Still, in every adverse situation there is collateral value. In this case it is the time to re-examine our priorities. In recent days my department at Stellenbosch University hosted a Covid-19 digital roundtable titled "Social Justice and Mental Health in the Time of Corona". Professors from Oxford, Stellenbosch and elsewhere engaged with students and the public about the implications of the virus for poverty, inequality and mental health.

The speakers agreed that to combat the spread of the disease the government could not avoid restrictive regulations with adverse consequences. But while Covid-19 treats everyone the same, the policy response harmed some more than others, due to SA’s glaring socioeconomic disparities.

Consider the picture on the cover of the FM’s "lockdown edition" two weeks ago of a lone rickshaw on an empty Durban promenade. It showed crisply how the self-employed and the informal sector are being hit far worse than many other parts of our economy.

The virus hit SA’s economy when it was already in intensive care

Could the government have done better? It’s true that it had limited policy options, and that sacrifices were inevitable. But were some of the unequal sacrifices avoidable?

During the roundtable the speakers — among them Oxford professor Sandra Fredman, former SA statistician-general Pali Lehohla and myself — applauded the government’s swift and decisive action. But we also highlighted policy design defects that undermined the long-term pursuit of equality and the ideals of shared prosperity.

There was consensus that we need to do more to use data analytics to predict the likely social justice impact of any policy. This means implementing the policy in a virtual environment to assess the impact on various diverse groups.

In the UK this is a requirement under section 149 of the Equality Act. We don’t do this well in SA, even though I believe a similar exercise is also required under our constitution.

So what would such an exercise entail? You’d have to ask whether each regulation would cause an equal burden, or benefit, across the range of poor and rich; small companies and big business; commuters and car owners; people in big houses and those in shacks; people in cities and those in rural areas; those who have mental health issues and those who don’t; the old and the young; and citizens and immigrants.

Of course, it doesn’t mean that if a policy is likely to harm or benefit one group more than another it must be abandoned. But policy design must be informed by the lived reality of all, using socially disaggregated data — information about various parts of the population. Policy can’t just be modelled against the lives of those who create it.

In Canada, where the impact of the government’s Covid-19 rules has eroded income, economic packages have been designed not simply to protect formal business and jobs, but also to help individuals who are struggling.

In our case this would mean also covering the person who pulls the rickshaw, the car guard and Gogo Dlamini selling crafts.

Compensatory packages, the roundtable concluded, must also factor in the impact of Covid-19 on areas beyond just the economy — like our mental health and education systems.

Many successful people will tell you their journey began only once they’d hit rock bottom. This moment is a chance for SA to reflect on the true meaning of advancing shared prosperity and a society based on democratic values, social justice and human rights. It’s our time to fortify SA so that next time there’s a crisis, we won’t just be firefighters.