Mind the gap: why isn’t social distancing among the poor being policed?

While many middle-class South Africans waited patiently outside the sliding doors of popular retail outlets – queuing in their dozens, trying to keep 1m from each other – the majority of poor South Africans were crammed shoulder to shoulder to access their monthly lifeline.

Thousands of citizens rushed to Sassa payout points on Monday to collect their social grants in spite of health warnings to maintain a social distance in the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic. 

Lines at various stores stretched hundreds of metres while the police presence was close to none. 

In Inanda, north of Durban, 67-year-old Simon Mkhize waited  hours to receive his pension, but to no avail. 

Mkhize said it wasn’t that people didn’t want to adhere to social distancing, but it seemed irrelevant in the context of what the poor were faced with. 

“Many of us don’t have credit cards, we don’t have the luxury of going to buy on credit when we want. We haven’t stocked up on groceries. I’ve asked people to try keep their distance in the queue but it’s not something that I can enforce alone.”

He said he it wasn’t a matter of whether he would get the coronavirus, but when. 

Amid the chaos of the old and frail queuing for grants, there were others who had just been paid and needed to queue to buy food and groceries.

Hlengiwe Mkhize, 38, a security guard who works for Transnet, sat in the scorching sun from 6am, but eight hours later she was no closer to getting to where she wanted to be – inside the shop. 

Speaking to Times Select in Ispingo, south of Durban, Mkhize said she was angered by the lack of policing. 

“The police here who were supposed to put things in order are not working. If they were working the situation wouldn’t be like this.”

She said that she had only been paid on Monday and needed to buy groceries to sustain her, her son and her niece who lives with her in Malukazi, near iSipingo. 

“The last time I bought groceries was last month. I’m worried about the virus, but there’s not much I can do. A lot of people come here because the food is cheaper than other places and so I had to take the risk.”

The rush to the Sassa payouts at outlets in and around Durban prompted a visit from police minister Bheki Cele. 

Accompanied by national police commissioner Khehla Sitole and members of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF), Cele visited payout points in KwaMashu, Inanda and Umlazi on Monday. 

While he admitted that the queues were far too long and social distancing was something not taking place as it should, Cele said this was the first payout day following the lockdown and the government would need to assess and take necessary action to remedy the situation. 

“(I will be) talking with the department of social development; if we can break it into smaller numbers – opening up paypoints on the same day for everybody doesn’t help much. Remember this is the first time that there is a payday after the lockdown, so we will be making observations and taking them back to cabinet on Wednesday,” he said. 

In the public interest none of our coronavirus news coverage will be behind our paywall, it is available free for all to read. If you would like to support our mission of delivering award-winning, independent local news, please consider taking out a subscription by clicking here: www.dispatchLIVE.co.za/buy/.