OPINION - Mr President, South Africa should get its priorities right. Your Cabinet is spending seven times more on a prisoner compared to what it spends on the education of a pupil.
More shocking is your recent statement that rapists and murderers should get life sentences without any possibility of parole, which will further widen this gap significantly.
Mr President, you should eradicate this increasing gap and reconsider your recent decision that will further drain the valuable resources of our country’s extremely limited budget.
According to Statistics South Africa there were 1 2490 132 pupils in public schools in 2017/18 and 402 141 pupils in independent schools, while the amount spent on basic education in South Africa was R246billion. This implies that the annual amount spent on the education of a pupil was R19143.
In stark contrast, the government spent a whopping R133 800 on each prisoner in 2017. This amount is seven times more than what government spent on education in our country.
What baffles me is that our country is investing more of its scarce and valuable resources on prisoners than on education of our future leaders. Education was most important to Tata Mandela and President Ramaphosa’s recent decision must cause our nation’s father to turn in his grave.
Do you blame me for concluding that our country is going to the dogs, amid the high level of corruption that has permeated all spheres of government? I agree that the right of every citizen, as a human being, should be respected. However, rapists and murderers have out of their own free will made the decision to cross the line of common decency and by their own actions have lost the rights afforded to human beings. As a citizen of this beautiful country, I propose that we demand a referendum on an alternative and appropriate way to deal with scum, such as rapists and murderers.
Adiel Ismail Mount View
Daily News