And just like that 287,000 unemployed youth got paid jobs as “education assistant placement” (sic). Boom. How on Earth did that happen? Pay attention, people. It’s election time. Expect more unexpected gifts as we hurtle towards the municipal polls. Timing perfect, Ebrahim Patel, who just announced that businesses that suffered losses during the July riots and looting in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal will receive help. Wonderful. What else? Free this, free that. Bloody scoundrels, these politicians. The opportunists will stop at nothing.

I train my students to ask the right questions when these freeloaders come promising things. Questions like, why are there still 3,000 schools with pit toilets? Where’s that promised bullet train now that 8,000 people are living on or around Cape Town’s central train line? Why has the top official in government still not been arrested for giving the orders to assassinate courageous whistleblower Babita Deokaran?..