Poverty doubles in a decade

This article was published on IOL.

(In case you did’nt know, government has set itself the noble goal of halving poverty by 2014. At the current rate however, with poverty doubling every 10 years, by 2014, if indeed government is successful in halving poverty, in the future, we’ll be enjoying today’s present levels of unacceptable poverty. Of course the government will pat itself on the back for a job well done forgetting that in real terms, the really poor people of South Africa are twice as worse off as they were before democracy. Nothing like cold, hard facts to clear through the smoke, mirrors, word and mind games which our government has become so adept at. All this reminds me of George Orwell’s book, 1984. – Editor)

Severe poverty levels in South Africa have doubled in the last 10 years, the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) said on Monday.

A survey released by the SAIRR this month showed that poverty in the country increased “dramatically” between 1996 and 2005, said researcher Marius Roodt in a statement.

“Using the globally accepted measure of poverty, of people living on less than one US dollar per day, poverty has increased in South Africa, both in absolute numbers and proportionally.

“In 1996, some 1,9 million South Africans survived on less than one US dollar per day. This had increased to 4,2 million by 2005,” said Roodt.

According to IOL one dollar was equal to R6.76 at 3.57pm on Monday.

An overall increase in poverty in provinces outside of the Western Cape and Gauteng were due to high levels of unemployment and a disproportion between the demand and supply of jobs.

The province with the highest percentage of people living in poverty was Limpopo, followed by KwaZulu Natal.

The Western Cape had the smallest percentage of its population living on less then a dollar a day – however this percentage had doubled between 1996 and 2005.

The only other province which had less than five percent of its population living on less than a dollar a day was Gauteng. Poverty in the province, considered the country’s economic engine, also increased substantially from one percent in 1996 to 3,5 percent in 2005. – Sapa