Non-financial information on municipalities creates concern and paints an incomplete picture – AfriForum
7 April 2021
The civil rights organisation AfriForum took note of Statistics South Africa’s (StatsSA’s) non-financial indicators for 2019 and believes that these do not reflect the true challenges and situation.
Morné Mostert, Manager of Local Government Affairs at AfriForum, says that some of the information is indeed cause for concern and that the joint national figures do not mirror the ongoing quality and availability of services. “For example, there is no recent information on the quality of drinking water. Government no longer publishes its Blue and Green Drop Reports.
“In addition, the availability of water in especially rural areas – but recently also in metropolitan areas such as Johannesburg – remains an enormous problem. StatsSA’s figures show that drinking water is being delivered, but fail to indicate the uncertainty in the delivery and quality thereof.
“The information indeed shows that some municipalities in poorer rural provinces are unable to provide free services such as sewage removal to indigents. The information only covers certain services and circumstances in certain municipalities and does not mirror the reality that we see on ground level, such as disintegrating roads.”