Did-you-know

Did you know? 

• Total debt that was owed to municipalities for rates, taxes and other municipal services on 31 March 2015 was R96 billion. The portion owed by government departments was R3.6 billion.
• While 89% of households in SA have access to piped water, only 62% are happy with the quality of the service, according to Statistics SA’s household survey.
• The representation of women in Parliament is 41% and 43% in Cabinet. Representation in Senior Management in the public sector is 40.6%, while the private sector has less than 5% women as Chief Executive Officers.
• The number of municipalities receiving clean audits has increased from 13, five years ago, to 54 in 2014-15, according to the Auditor-General’s local government audit results. The highest proportion of municipalities with clean audit opinions were in the Western Cape (73%), Gauteng (33%) & KZN (30%).
• Government has made significant progress in building toilets since 2002, with 80% of households now with access to toilets of a minimum standard — a ventilated pit latrine — from 62.3% 13 years ago. The proportion of households with no toilet or a bucket toilet has dropped from 12.3% in 2002, to 4.9% in 2015.
• 101 initiates lost their lives during the 2015 winter and summer initiation seasons, and most cases were recorded in the Eastern Cape.