Four of the five problems that the public identify and consistently dominate across the South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS) and other nationally representative surveys, is unemployment, crime, corruption, and service delivery.
Unemployment has consistently been in the No.1 spot over the past two decades followed by crime and safety in the No.2 spot, which has tended to fluctuate up and down.
Corruption is ranked third or fourth now in the publics priority list and has rocketed upwards since 2017, where in 2003 only 10% of citizens had concerns about it, but is now heading up towards the 40% mark. The public are deeply concerned about the crisis of corruption.
The other problem that has surprisingly not been higher given our general concerns about different aspects is service delivery (eg electricity and load-shedding), which has consistently edged upwards towards the 30% mark. If the needs of the public and specific concerns are not addressed about service delivery, it is going to continue to trend upwards.
Listen to Dr Ben Roberts of the HSRC by clicking on the icon below or view his webinar on Capturing the real state of the nation at a societal level
