More grants than salaries in Eastern Cape

GRANTS are more prevalent than salaries as a source of income in the Eastern Cape and Limpopo‚ Statistics South Africa said in its General Household Survey released yesterday.

The survey found that nationally salaries (65.4%) and grants (45.7%) were the most common sources of income reported by households.

A household can have more than one source of income and percentages therefore do not add up to 100%.

The largest percentage of households earning salaries was in the Western Cape (76.7%) and Gauteng (74.8%).

Eastern Cape (59.1%) and Limpopo (58%) households recorded grants as the dominant source of income.

It also found that remittances as a source of income played an important role in most provinces‚ but especially in Limpopo (25.2%)‚ Eastern Cape (23.7%) and Mpumalanga (19.5%).

The survey aims to assess the levels of development in South Africa as well as the extent of service delivery and the quality of services in a number of key service sectors‚ including health‚ education‚ social development and housing.

It found that 88.8% of households in the country had access to piped water last year, but only 75.1% in Limpopo and 75.7% in Eastern Cape.

Educational attainment outcomes continued to improve.

The percentage of pupils who said they were exempted from paying tuition at public schools increased from 0.4% in 2002 to 65.3% last year.

Almost 80% of South African households lived in formal dwellings.