Moviegoers, especially thriller and horror fans, know the feeling all too well of watching a scene with suspense as a scared and vulnerable protagonist navigates their way through a dark and dangerous path as a dangerous antagonist lies in wait to attack.
Similarly, South Africa finds itself in a dark moment as a nation. It is in the thick of a second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, nearly 300 days since the national lockdown was declared and more than 4 000 Covid-19-related deaths in the first 12 days of 2021 alone.
However, its fiscus is besieged with the ever-growing demands of managing the response to the pandemic, softening the socio-economic blow of the virus and lockdown on South Africans and keeping tempers cool with public servants demanding agreed wage increases.