One out of every two South Africans thinks the government has failed when it comes to service-delivery. This is one of the conclusions in the sixth annual governmental Development Indicators Report, which was released this week.
One out of every two South Africans thinks the government has failed when it comes to service-delivery. This is one of the conclusions in the sixth annual governmental Development Indicators Report, which was released this week.
It found that 49% of the public had a negative view of service delivery in South Africa. This number is up from only 19% who viewed service-delivery as a failure in 2004.
The report also reveals a steep increase in service-delivery protests.
In the first six months of 2012 there were 113 of such protests, while the whole of 2011 saw ‘only’ 81. Makana Municipality has experienced several extensive water outages. There was a prolonged outage in March and this month many residents were without water for 10 days, while parts of Joza were without water for four weeks.
The presidency has confirmed that it has directly intervened in the Makana water saga, following a protest march on 14 August, which received national coverage.
The Development Indicators Report also reveals that 17.6% South African households still have no access to basic sanitation and 23.5% are without access to electricity. Two percent of all South African households have no access to water infrastructure at all.
“Proper maintenance of infrastructure remains a challenge in places, affecting the quality and functionality of services,” said Collins Chabane, the Minister for Performance Monitoring and Evaluation in a statement regarding the provision of basic services.
