The quality of life index of Gauteng residents has declined significantly over the past two years, with unprecedented levels of dissatisfaction with the government the biggest factor behind the drop, say researchers.
The findings of the survey indicate that the Gauteng ANC will face its toughest election ever in November, with satisfaction with provincial and local government having seriously deteriorated. It is only in the DA-run municipality of Midvaal that satisfaction levels have held steady at 56%.
Residents in the province were also hit hard by the pandemic, with many losing jobs and income, with black Africans faring the worst.
In an important headline finding, over 63% of people think the country is going in the wrong direction, a three percentage point increase on the survey results two years ago.
Projections for the forthcoming municipal election by pollster Dawie Scholtz show the ANC failing to win a majority in Joburg and Tshwane and only scraping in in Ekurhuleni. This is assuming that the ANC gets to register its missing candidates before the election.
The quality of life survey is conducted every two years by the Gauteng City Region Observatory (GCRO), a research institute, which is a joint project between the Gauteng provincial government, Wits and Johannesburg universities and the SA Local Government Association. It holds face-to-face interviews with 13,616 respondents, with at least 20 people in every Gauteng ward interviewed.
The index was calculated on a combination of weighted factors that include socioeconomic wellbeing; satisfaction with services; health; safety; satisfaction with government; participation in community life and decisions; and general life satisfaction. The overall index dropped from 64 to 61, which GCRO director of research Graeme Gotz said was “a very, very serious weakening in the quality of life in Gauteng”.
While some satisfaction levels were static or slightly improved, such as health, safety and service delivery, socioeconomic status and satisfaction with the government dipped.
“What is driving this big drop is sliding satisfaction with government,” says Gotz.
Trust in the government is alarmingly low, with only 24% of people saying they trust the leaders in government. Satisfaction with government officials has also plummeted, with 70% of respondents saying officials did not apply the principles of “batho pele” — to put people first — a dramatic increase from 52% two years earlier.
Corruption
While respondents said the absence of jobs was their biggest problem and this was the government’s biggest shortcoming, as many (15%) also flagged corruption as a cause of poverty and 18% said that preventing corruption was government’s biggest failing.
Satisfaction with all three levels of government dropped, with the Gauteng provincial government — which had under the leadership of David Makhura been improving — suffering a massive 15 percentage point decline, to 29%. Satisfaction with national government is 33% and local government, where approval is lowest, is at 25.7%.
Socioeconomic conditions, also documented in other recent surveys show that “Covid has triggered an economic collapse”, said Julia de Kadt, project manager for the survey.
“Six years of progress in poverty alleviation has been erased,” she said.
While 18% of households two years ago experienced hunger, that has now increased to 25%. Thirty percent of respondents indicated that they had lost employment or income, with only 50% of those regaining it after the hard lockdown ended.
On the positive side, 23% of households had one adult or more who benefited from the R350 social relief of distress grant and an increased percentage of households (13%) had children who benefited from a feeding scheme.
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