South African looters says: Hungry stomachs are angry stomachs

“Hungry stomachs are angry stomachs, which is why we feel that unemployed people should be provided with a basic income grant. Our government has money but it is not prioritised properly.”

SHOOT: One way to make money available to the poor, something that should have happened 10 years ago, is cut fat salaries.

clipped from www.sowetan.co.za A GROUP representing the unemployed in KwaZulu-Natal has threatened to set townships alight and unleash an army of looters on shops unless all jobless people received a basic income grant of R1500 a month. National spokesperson for the SA Unemployed People’s Movement, Nozipho Mteshana, said a survey the group commissioned had uncovered more than 26million unemployed people in South Africa, more than half of the population. The figures had gone up recently because of job losses from the economic meltdown. Mteshana said the country would soon be in flames if the government failed to do something because people’s anger could not be contained much longer. “We give our government and eThekwini municipality, which is our focus at this point, seven days to give us answers.” The group has handed the municipality a memorandum of their grievances. “If we don’t get positive answers by next Wednesday we will let people loot all the big shops and take whatever food they find in those shops.