Dear Daily Maverick
Responding to the article on the death and work of Babita Dekoran,Babita Deokaran’s assassination spotlighted at symposium on corruption in Gauteng’s Department of Health
I wonder if it would be possible to start making more evident the deaths, of people with names and faces, caused directly by the los of funds for healthcare, infrastructure etc. The thousands and thousands.
We keep seeing numbers or rands stolen, and that causes us to think of they money now with the thieves, and perhaps we wonder what they have done with it. But that distracts from the actual lives lost. I’m not sure how this could be done, and of course it may be difficult to prove and avoid accusations of libel… but somewhere we need to count the cost and join the dots, other than in rands and cents.
I am NOT equating what is happening in our country with apartheid, it is vastly different, though apartheid contained within itself Plenty of corruption and theft. But then, and historically, and now, I don’t think we are making explicit the deaths, of children and adults who die needlessly for medical treatment not afforded, of hardship, injury from dangerously failed infrastructure, from stress, heartbreak, and social dislocation.
Maybe even more than one paper together.
Not in support of any party, but clafying the truth, then we can decide what to do about it.