Nkandla should not be funded by tax payers, say South Africans.

9 February 2016

More than four in every ten adult South Africans (42%) disagreed with the notion that President Jacob Zuma’s private home should be funded by taxpayers. This is an important finding of a question posed to a representative sample of South Africans in October 2015.

The question was: “Please indicate whether you agree or disagree with the following statement: President Jacob Zuma is entitled to a private home regardless of the cost to taxpayers.” Opinions have become more negative during the six months since April / May 2015 – at which time 37% of South Africans disagreed with the statement.

The view of supporters of different political parties was also interesting. Majorities of DA and EFF supporters were strongly opposed to tax payers footing the bill, and only a third of ANC supporters shared this opinion. 41% of ANC supporters believe that Zuma’s private residence should be paid by taxes.

In all provinces less than half of adults agreed with the statement, but South Africans living in KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and North West were the most supportive, while the strongest negative reactions came from the Northern Cape, Western Cape and the Free State:

Technical detail

A total of 3,617 personal face-to-face interviews were conducted with randomly selected adult South Africans. The interviews were done in the homes and home languages of respondents. Trained quantitative fieldworkers from all population groups were responsible for the interviewing, which took place from 17 September to 19 October 2015. Interviews were done all over the country, from metropolitan areas to deep rural areas. This methodology ensured that the results are representative of the views of the universe and that findings can be weighted and projected to the universe – i.e. South Africans 15 years and older.

Interviews were conducted using CAPI (Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing) and all results were collated and analyzed in an aggregate format to protect the identity and confidentiality of respondents.

All sample surveys are subject to a margin of error, determined by sample size, sampling methodology and response rate. The sample error for the sample as a whole at a 95% confidence level is a maximum of 1,63%.

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