Until Covid struck, I was the co-owner of a small Indian restaurant in Cape Town. Not the likeliest calling for a novelist, but it was something I got involved in to help a friend. The business had been struggling for a while and we had no cash reserves when the first lockdown hit, so I was suddenly liable for the bills – including the salaries of our five staff – and I paid, and paid, and paid. Many other restaurants cut their workers loose, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that. Our employees were just getting by and had mouths to feed. What were they supposed to do? Besides, our government had assured us that salaries would be covered by relief money, to be disbursed by the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) for this very purpose. We had only to apply.
I am still waiting. There were scanty, arbitrary amounts of relief each month, different each time, with no explanation. Calling the UIF was useless; it was almost impossible to reach anybody, and if you did, they invariably couldn’t help. I made up the difference for four months, but couldn’t keep doing that forever. When we finally closed in July last year, the staff’s severance pay came out of my account, too.
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