More than half of Gauteng people say South Africa is a failed state: survey

The largest longitudinal survey of life in Gauteng has found it is getting so much harder for the people of the country’s bread-basket province.

For 15 years, the Gauteng City Region Observatory (GCRO) has measured quality of life and satisfaction with the government. Its latest survey of 33 indicators has found that more than half of those interviewed believe South Africa is a failed state – on safety, quality of government and their ability to progress. One in four people in South Africa lives in Gauteng. 

“We’ve witnessed an overall decline,” says Rashid Seedat, the executive director of the GCRO. “I would venture to say poor governance has been a significant contributor to the current state of affairs.” 

Trust in government was low, with more than 70% of those surveyed saying government officials do not put people first. 

“There are signs we could move in the right direction. We’ve reached the bottom of the barrel and hopefully begin climbing out,” says Seedat. He is referring to the national indicators of better growth and employment which can feed into Gauteng’s quality of life. 

Income and employment numbers threw up some green shoots, with those surveyed suggesting their prospects and circumstances are better than measured in the 2021 survey when Covid-19 took a scythe to their lives. But inflation eats into incomes. Race remains a key determinant of well-being, ability to progress and to protect yourself from unemployment or poor services. More than 85% of those surveyed said it was harder to find a job these days.  

While Gauteng is still the country’s wealthiest province, inequality’s crocodile jaws are widening and they widen along race cleavages. White and Indian people in the province have far more ability to improve their lives and protect themselves. The number of adults who skip meals because they can’t afford food is higher than last measured, while more than half of those surveyed said children were accessing school feeding schemes. Without state solidarity like social grants and school feeding, Gauteng’s poor population would be in worse circumstances, as the chart shows.  

Dissatisfaction with the government drives the perception that the state is failing, and also drives disengagement. Because negotiating and dealing with the state at national, provincial and local government level is so difficult, people’s interest and trust in the political process declines. The GCRO found that while dissatisfaction with local government has historically been high, the national and provincial spheres are now similarly regarded. The chart below shows how water access and provision, refuse removal and access to electricity have all declined. The survey was taken before load shedding ended, says research manager Graham Gotz, who also found that “increasing numbers of people are using candles for lighting”. This could be attributed to load shedding or the cost of electricity.  

Read more: Water shortages

Water provision is regarded by the GCRO as a rising risk across the municipalities that make up the province. One of the biggest post-apartheid development dividends was the extension of access to clean water to black people – that vital trend is in decline, with only 64% of people saying they enjoy this resource. The municipal chart shows that only Mogale City and Midvaal bucked the trend of decline. Gotz says researchers recorded a huge increase in the number of water interruptions in Gauteng. 

Gauteng is South Africa’s melting-pot province, with large inward migration from the rest of the country as well as from the rest of the continent and the world. The researchers say one factor in the decline in overall quality of life and dissatisfaction with the government could also be the stress on resources from this migration.

An interesting finding in the survey is that Gauteng residents are not xenophobic: the number of people who answered positively to the question about whether legal migration is acceptable to them was higher than before. Many parties fought the provincial election on an anti-foreigner ticket, possibly leading to an increase in people who also said foreigners should be sent home. 

The survey is one of South Africa’s largest, with 13,795 respondents in 529 wards across the province. Researchers conducted 600 or more interviews per municipality. Gauteng is a constellation of municipalities.

Load shedding may be rapidly receding, with 200 load shedding-free days celebrated by Eskom last week. But the impact has a very long tail, as the survey shows. People’s lives were turned upside down, as shown by the chart. Young people struggled to study; people lost jobs and safety was imperilled by the power cuts. Moreover, researchers found that even when there is no load shedding the Gauteng municipalities are unable to guarantee a steady supply of power and when they can, it is increasingly too expensive for people to keep the lights on. The use of candles increased exponentially.

The decline in electricity and water supply is a big factor in people’s perception that they are living in a failed state.  

The South African public service principle is that officials should put people first – the Batho Pele principle. In Gauteng, officials are doing the opposite – putting people last. 

The survey found that a whopping 76% of those interviewed disagreed that officials put them first. The local and provincial levels are where citizens have to interact with officials everywhere, from the health system to welfare and other services such as education and licensing.  This is another factor that could add to the perception of state failure when officials fail to serve people well.  

The quality of life survey moves beyond traditional thinking about development, says Gotz. “It is a fuller array of people’s circumstances and subjective perspectives of themselves in the world they inhabit.” DM