Are RDP houses still relevant today?

We all know that the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) began as a South African socio-economic policy framework implemented by the ANC government in 1994 whose chief aim for developing and implementing the RDP was to address the immense socio-economic problems brought about by the consequences of the struggle against its predecessors under the Apartheid regime. Specifically, it set its sights on alleviating poverty and addressing the massive shortfalls in social services across the country. Achieving poverty alleviation and a stronger economy were thus seen as deeply interrelated and mutually supporting objectives—development without growth would be financially unsustainable, while growth without development would fail to bring about the necessary structural transformation within South Africa’s deeply inequitable and largely impoverished population. Hence the RDP attempted to combine measures to boost the economy such as contained fiscal spending, sustained or lowered taxes, reduction of government debt and trade liberalisation with socially minded social service provisions and infrastructural projects. In this way, the policy took on both socialist and neo-liberal elements—but could not be easily categorised wholly in either camp.

Phew! The reason why I wrote all the nitti gritty stuff and didn’t immediately dive into my argument is because I thought that the current day’s youth needs to be reminded of what this programme was initially created for. I feel that we’ve taken advantage of the whole ‘bridging the gap’ ideology and have caught a serious case of GDS (government Dependency Syndrome) and as the rate is going I actually think that it should go down in the books because we need a quick fix for this viral, delusional disorder. It is rapidly becoming a trend and should be terminated before it becomes a state of mind! We are 20 years into democracy which means that the vision had was a reality and the goal was reached. With equal rights and opportunities, our generation has not really experienced a setback in terms of creating something on our own that’ll be able to sustain us and leave behind for the generations to come; why still expect the government to mother us because of reasons of the past? Why cripple ourselves into believing that it’s okay to hide behind the excuse of colour and limit our potential because truly we are too lazy to go out of our way to do something for ourselves.

Yes, you can debate and say that not everyone had the privilege of going to the best of schools and home situations are different and and and… boohoo; poor you. Have you never heard of the saying that poverty is a state of mind? You even get rich people making poor decisions, amounting their riches to the life of the beggar standing at a robot drowning himself in shame and self-pity; Then you get people that study under candle light and are still able to excel beyond their circumstances because they think rich. So long story short, your Point Of Information falls flat. Sorry.

But the youth is not to take full blame on this matter. The government has also created room for such behaviour in the sense that it’s still giving out these houses to people that should be doing it for themselves. Dishing out compensation shelters and babying the brains and future leaders of our country is going to get us nowhere fast. People will be comfortable earning ‘just enough’ and working mediocre jobs, because they don’t really have to work that hard for anything as one of their most important necessities- being a roof over their head- has been handed to them on a silver platter. Should the government not instill in us the value of independence and work with us to strive towards putting the youth in positions where they can be self-sustained and allocate the money used in building and maintaining RDP houses rather to job creation or skills development which will not only increase the ability to find work easier and elevate our economy, but also to formulate a platform for positive, enriching and cultivating attitudes. I’m no expert, but I think it’s worth a try… though don’t you  think it’ll be better than playing saviour to millions of young adults who are absolutely capable of taking care of themselves? And when will it end? When will the government say it’s enough? I don’t know if they’ve realised, but I could basically parasite off of them for my entire lifespan forth. RDP’s are readily available, grants are being distributed like spam and food is a soup kitchen away. That right there ladies and gentlemen is why our economy is always struggling to keep its head above water.

We need to ask ourselves if the RDP system is still relevant today and we’ll only know if the government holds their shovels for a minute and young people pick ours up. It’s about time we stopped being parasites and actually worked towards a bigger and better future, where apartments and penthouses take centre stage and not RDP’s!…Unless you think a pity box is an apartment, and in that case I’m afraid that you’ll be the only person left with the terrible case of GDS.