Best of 2023: Was it the year that proved SA is beyond repair?

A video that summed up 2023 very well recently went viral. In it, a zebra manages to escape from a crocodile attack, albeit with a broken leg. As it limps out of the water, away from the crocodile’s clutches, another surprise is waiting. A lion is seen to the left of video. He knows the zebra won’t get far, and walks towards it before galloping slightly as the zebra attempts to run, before taking the zebra down. 

We should have known that 2023 wasn’t going to be an easy ride when Eskom announced Stage 2 load shedding on 31 December 2022 as many prepared to ring the old year out.

It would be our darkest year yet – electricity-wise, nevermind anything else. Even though we have four ministers to deal with load shedding, South Africa would have 86% more load shedding than any other year since 2015, according to the Eskomsepush app.

In terms of the Constitution, every person has basic human rights such as: equality before the law and equal protection and benefit of the law, freedom from unfair discrimination and the right to life.

Various incidents throughout the year, though, would reveal a government that’s out of touch with the needs of citizens and that’s not even bothered to ensure they have access to their basic rights.  

In March, prominent insolvency practitioner Cloete Murray and his son Thomas, known for their work on cases involving the powerful and the corrupt, were shot by hitmen on the N1 highway near Johannesburg. Thomas died on the scene, and his father, who was struck at least once in the head, died in hospital. Their deaths revealed just how normalised hiring hitmen has become in South Africa. 

A few months later another incident would once again reveal how dysfunctional our state system is when Facebook rapist Thabo Bester escaped from the high-security Mangaung Correctional Centre in the Free State on 3 May 2022 in a daring scheme.

The lack of service delivery and maintenance in the country’s economic hub, Johannesburg would be brought home starkly by a methane gas explosion in Lilian Ngoyi Street (formerly Bree Street) in July, which led to the death of one person.

And, if that wasn’t enough, six hundred thousand vulnerable people, already at the mercy of poverty, woke up on 5 and 6 September to face the prospect of only being able to access a small amount of their grant or none at all due to what was labelled a system “glitch”. The crisis revealed a government utterly unshaken by the plight of those forced to find a way to feed themselves and pay for electricity until the glitch was resolved. It would be a three-week wait for some to get access to their money. 

The murder of Kirsten Kluyts in broad daylight in an area near tennis courts, a restaurant, soccer fields and cricket nets in a Johannesburg suburb highlighted once more that women are safe nowhere. Worse still is that the government doesn’t appear to be in any hurry to get a handle of the crisis. 

To contextualise what a ride this year has been, we’ve compiled six top editions of Friday Briefing, so you can look back and make sense of 2023. It doesn’t paint the government in a very good light. May 2024 bring us better governance and accountability. 

Best, 

Vanessa Banton 

Opinions editor.