Your Taxes Are Paying for an Embassy While You Wait for Water

The ANC has turned foreign policy into a vanity project funded by people who cannot afford vanity.

Photo by Walter Randlehoff on Unsplash

Written By: Saul Jassinowsky

Somewhere in the Eastern Cape right now, a mother is boiling muddy water so her child can drink it safely. Somewhere else, a pensioner is sitting on a plastic chair outside a clinic that has run out of medicine. Somewhere else, a patient is waiting for an ambulance that will never arrive.

And somewhere in Pretoria, your tax money is paying for the Embassy of Palestine.

Office space. Salaries. Security. Cars. Staff. Diplomatic perks. Quietly. Automatically. Without debate. Without public consent. Most South Africans have no idea this is happening.

It is never advertised in budget speeches. It is never explained in service-delivery plans. It is simply deducted from your pay slip and rerouted to a foreign diplomatic mission that does absolutely nothing for your life.

No water pipes. No hospital beds. No medicine. No sanitation. Just symbolism.

Because nothing says “we care about our people” quite like funding foreign embassies while your own municipalities rot.

This is not an accident. It is a political choice.

The ANC government tells South Africans there is “no money” for clinics, “no money” for repairs, “no money” for infrastructure. But somehow there is always money for ideological foreign policy. There is always money for posturing. There is always money for being seen to be virtuous on the world stage.

Apparently, it is easier to run an embassy than a hospital.

And when Israel partnered openly with traditional leaders and civil society in the Eastern Cape to help provide clean drinking water, the ANC did not welcome the assistance. It did not say, “Good, our people are suffering – let’s expand this.”

It panicked.

Because helping people was never the point.

Controlling the narrative was.

Water became political. Aid became suspicious. Solutions became embarrassing.

So practical help was blocked, while tax money continued flowing to a foreign embassy that produces press statements but not potable water.

Let’s be brutally honest: what does this embassy actually do for South Africans?

Does it fix sewage plants? Does it staff hospitals? Does it send doctors to rural clinics? Does it build treatment facilities? No. It issues statements. It hosts meetings. It waves flags. It helps the ANC perform moral theatre abroad while moral collapse continues at home.

No child in Mthatha drinks cleaner water because of it. No patient in Lusikisiki gets medicine because of it. No nurse in Gqeberha gets equipment because of it. But they all pay for it.

This is what governance looks like when ideology replaces responsibility: loud speeches overseas, quiet suffering at home.

We are told this is about “human rights”. Fine. Then explain to South Africans why their human right to clean water is less important than maintaining a foreign embassy. Explain why international slogans matter more than local survival.

The ANC has turned foreign policy into a vanity project funded by people who cannot afford vanity.

A government that cannot run a municipality has appointed itself global referee. A government that cannot fix pipes has chosen to fix narratives. A government that cannot staff clinics has chosen to staff embassies. That is not solidarity. That is self-indulgence.

And until the ANC understands that moral speeches do not substitute for service delivery, every rand spent on foreign political theatre will remain a monument to what this government truly prioritises. Not citizens. Not patients. Not children. Image.

So here is the question South Africans should be asking loudly: How is it that there is money for embassies…but none for water?

Saul Jassinowsky is a prominent Jewish communal leader. He is a strong advocate for Jewish communal interests, Israel engagement, and principled public discourse. Alongside his professional career, he has been actively involved in philanthropy and civil-society initiatives, and is widely respected for his forthright, values-driven approach to leadership.