I'm often asked...

I am often asked if I am as depressed about our situation in South Africa and about the failures of government as everyone else appear’s to be and if I, like them, believe things are getting worse and worse to the point of no return.   As often as I am asked, I never seem to be any less amazed by the question, which is so far from what I actually think that in the moment it seems quite absurd!

I think we South Africans, are very hard on ourselves and don’t give ourselves the credit we deserve.  Now, the fact that we are perfectionists and we don’t want some success, we want total success is good...it drives us in a way, to achieve what we do.  It is good that we are not satisfied with a better life for some and we want a better life for all...but we could lighten up along the way and make the journey less tedious and painful!  Would it be a sin for us to at least recognise our achievements even if we don’t want to celebrate them while some people are still hurting and struggling?

Let me start with service delivery – a thorny issue!  Even as I write I hear a chorus of voices shouting failure, failure, failure...so let’s look at these failures through the eyes of a little research.

Data published by the South African Institute of Race Relations shows that between 1996 and 2010:

The number of households living in formal houses increased from 5.8 million to 11 million or by 89.9%. Over the same period the proportion of all households living in a formal house increased from 64% to 76%.

The number of households with access to electricity increased from 5.2 million to 11.9 million or by 127.9%. The proportion of all households with access to electricity increased from 58% to 83%.

The number of households with access to piped water increased from 7.2 million to 12.7 million or by 76.6%. The proportion with access to piped water increased from 80% to 89%.

Increases similar to these are as real for all 15 service delivery indicators tracked by the Institute. These improvements are corroborated by Living Standard Measure improvements which show equally dramatic improvements in the number and proportion of people in higher living standard brackets.

Social welfare, now reaches over 15 million people and the proportion of South Africans living on less than $2/day has declined from 12% in 1994, and a peak of 17% in 2002, to just 5% today.

It can’t be true you say – why – because the newspaper says things are worse – they of course do have an agenda – or because the official opposition says things are worse – well they have an agenda too! 

Now I am not saying that what does go wrong is not wrong...it is...and it must be fixed – but exaggeration and generalising helps no-one.

What about the protests that are now commonplace around the country you say?  Could it be that these protests are not entirely about non-delivery but also about raised expectations that cannot reasonably be met at this point in time...just saying!

OK...now it may be possible that if our school system and the labour market were to deliver, we would be in a better mood to look on the bright side a little...yes I think education and the labour market will have to be my next blogging experiment!