THENEWSOUTHAFRICA
have jobs tended to be stagnant. 102 To alleviate abject poverty, the budget
included handouts in the form of pensions, housing subsidies, and child
care benefits, but many of these grants did not reach their targets because
of bureaucratic incompetence and corruption.l'P
The government also
devised a "black empowerment program," which was intended to create a
new class of black small businessmen, but throughout Mbeki's first year it
was not very successful, because fledgling companies suffered.from a lack
of skills and could not acquire enough capital, and also according to its
critics, because the established black elite derived most of the benefits.V'"
There was little, if any, abatement of crime. For example, in June 2000
a group of workers went on a rampage in the Helen Joseph Hospital in Jo-
hannesburg, trashing the hospital, breaking property, and throwing pa-
tients out of wheelchairs in protest against the arrest of several colleagues
for intimidation and assault. White-collar crime was also thriving. For ex-
ample, three South African Airways pilots and four other people appear to
have bought and sold license examination papers, and the chief of civil
aviation himself bought a dubious pilot's license.lOS An American medical