Pretoria - Basic services offered to the people of South Africa have had an impact on poverty, says Statistics South Africa (Stats SA).
Releasing the non-financial census of municipalities 2013 results on Tuesday, Statistician General Pali Lehohla said the services rendered by municipalities have reduced poverty.
“This cocktail of services has actually reduced poverty. The cocktail of services has had a major impact on poverty from a multiple poverty index point of view,” he said in Pretoria on Tuesday.
The report focuses on basic services namely: water services, electricity services, sewerage and sanitation services and solid waste management services offered by the 278 municipalities across the country.
The report showed that 11.8 million basic water services provided to households with 5.3 million receiving free basic services (FBS).
“In terms of water service we actually see that the FBS actually declined and started increasing again. They are not at the levels of 2009 but have started to increase,” said Lehohla.
Of the 11.8 million basic service for water services, 2.5 million benefitted from indigent support which is defined as any households or category of households including child-headed households, earning a combined gross income as determined by the municipality which qualifies for rebates or a services subsidy.
The FBS policy - which is targeted at indigent households - is 6kl of free water per household per month, 50kwh electricity per household per month, R50 average for sewage and sanitation and R50 average for solid waste management.
For electricity, 5.2 million of consumer units receiving basic electricity service received free basic electricity in 2013. The data showed that 3.4 million registered indigent households received free electricity.
When coming to sewerage and sanitation services, 10,0 consumer units nationally received basic sewerage and sanitation services.
In the Free State, R504 million in municipal revenue was collected for sewerage and sanitation charges while R77.4 million was spent on capital projects to improve sanitation infrastructure in the province.
With regards to solid waste management, 8.4 million consumer units nationally received basic solid waste management services and just under 62.3% of indigent households benefitted from indigent support on solid waste management.
According to the report 3.4 million of indigent households were registered with municipalities across the country.
Across time the number of those who would have been indigent or poor has dropped from 57 to 46 between the period 2006 and 2011. So whereas in 2006 there would have been 57 people in a 100 in 2011 this was 46. “This is because of this cocktail,” said Lehohla.
Basic services by municipality continues to gradually improve with access to electricity increasing by 2.3% and basic water was at 3.3%
Lehohla said the biggest driver of poverty was unemployment.
When coming to employment 62% of executive mayors and mayors positions in the 278 municipalities were men while 38% were women. - SAnews.gov.za
