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Etolls won’t change us, say internetless Gauteng residents

We hate etolls, but we’re not giving up our cars. That’s the message sent back to government today by the people of Gauteng, sent in a quality of life survey conducted by the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO) and presented today.

The GCRO, a partnership between the University of Johannesburg, Wits University, Gauteng Provincial Government and South African Local Government Association (SALGA), has been conducting the Gauteng Quality of Life survey biannually, the data for 2013 was published today.

The survey allows residents of the Gauteng City-Region to express their views on topics ranging from service delivery to informal traders to use of amenities to politics and more and act as a way for the provincial government to get feedback on how they are performing in their service to the Gauteng province.

Generally speaking, residents are happy with their lives as a whole showing satisfaction with many municipal services if not with the actual provincial government. They’re also relatively well connected with twice the percentage of houses boasting internet access compared to the national average – although since the national average is only 10%, that’s not saying much.

The survey report is quite in-depth with many aspects having been analysed and reported, here are a few interesting reported findings that we picked up on.

Satisfaction with life overall

Life can be stressful and there are many worrying external factors such as the job market and economy threatening our quality of life, but 70% of Gautengers said they are generally satisfied with their lives overall.

Screenshot (148)Satisfaction with provincial and national government

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Screenshot (155)E-tolls

As controversial as e-tolls are and with many residents not happy with the introduction of the tolls, not many people have changed the way they get to certain places because of them.

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Access to internet

Internet connectivity in households still remains a problem in Gauteng, only 19% of households said they have an internet connection. Across South Africa, only 10% of households have internet connectionScreenshot (133)“Green behaviour”

Gautengers are hardly recycling, if at all and the numbers are getting worse, just over 600 000 people in the province recycled last year, that’s just 7% of the total population.

Screenshot (144)Electricity and energy

Access to electricity for Gauteng residents was at 91% and most residents said they were satisfied with the energy service.

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Screenshot (126)Gauteng Premier David Makhura was at the launch to present his and the provincial government’s response to the survey’s findings.

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“Only arrogant leaders ignore what comes out of these maps”, Makhura said referring to the GCRO’s findings represented on maps and graphs. “Gauteng is a very complex space…There are many things we may not always resolve, but the gap between active governance and working with communities is something we want to work on.”

The premier also said that the provincial government would be pouring more funds into the GCRO’s work to expand research.

You can see more findings from the Gauteng Quality of Life Survey on the GCRO website.

[Main image- Flickr CC Chris Eason. Graphs supplied by GCRO]

 

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