According to Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) the number of informal settlement and households depending on social grant is on the rise.
The statistics show that more households in the country have access to electricity, water and a flushing toilet.
Formal homes have increased from eight-million in 2002 to 13-million in 2019. Though the erection of illegal mushrooming of shacks are closer to areas of employment.
Desperate residents of Johannesburg building shacks inside and on top of abandoned and hijacked buildings as new ghost towns mushroom across the inner city.
Hundreds of people have made themselves at home in some of the city’s abandoned old factories, office buildings and rundown residential flats, mainly in areas such as Jeppestown and Troyeville.
The shiny clustered iron shacks are noticeable from the Jeppe train station railway bridge, with lots of laundry on washing lines visible from afar.
General Statistician Risenga Maluleke says more homes have improved sanitation and other basic services despite the rise of shacks.
“But the functionality in relation to the quality of such services is not the best,” Maluleke said.
People are not willing to pay if there’s an increase in relation to water, there’s a decline in a number of people not willing to pay for such services.
Stats SA says fewer people are going to bed hungry.
Social grants dependency is on the rise with over 44-percent of households surveyed receiving one or more grants. The General Household Survey has been used as an instrument to track the progress of development in South Africa since 2002, when it was first introduced.
“Now in its eighteenth iteration, the numbers that are released in the GHS 2019 report show how far the country has progressed over the past seventeen years in addressing its developmental challenges.”
The current report outlines some achievements and challenges, as well as disparities in the level of the country’s development and its individual communities, Stats SA said.
