The most-liked prefix or postfix in political speeches – “since 1994” – is usually used as a historic marker of how far our country has gone since the dark days of apartheid.
Important as it is, it is often abused, stripped of its significance and rendered unhelpful in measuring the progress – or lack of it – in various respects of our national life.
It might, on the face of it, sound like a nice achievement for the government to announce the number of households who got access to certain services for the first time “since 1994”.