Is it a matter of having to choose between pots and kettles?
WITH 30 DAYS left to a watershed election that would usher in the sixth parliament, South Africa has woken up to its worst demons since the dawn of democracy.
Like a child at a birthday party, many are asking what happened to the balloons.
We are in a better space currently, because evidence from the Zondo Commission and many others point to who was responsible for a puncture in the hope of the nation.
Many responsible for our sorry demise that has hit the economy are putting up their hands, trying to woo South African votes, while asking to be given a second chance.
Others with equally chequered pasts are asking for the first chance.
Fortunately, democratic choices have to be made, even in the unfortunate scenario of choosing between pots and kettles.
Some have been much wiser, and perhaps much more fortunate, in making informed choices and took the tough route of seeking counsel from society.
The government of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) in 2015 asked Statistics SA to conduct a Citizen Satisfaction Survey to help make informed decisions to improve the lives of KZN’s citizens.
Statistics SA repeated this survey in 2018 and Statistician-General Risenga Maluleke released the results of this public portrait of KZN earlier this year.
The results highlighted certain areas of concern.
First, that public services are delivered in a fashion that is disjointed. It is not uncommon that a household will be satisfied with a water service, but completely dissatisfied with the structure of the house.
So the disparities in the level of satisfaction in human settlements goes on from sanitation to electricity and so on.
KZN citizens stand in a powerful position of having credible information by municipalities and can thus start addressing the challenges in a scientific manner.
Political parties, equally, are equipped with this information for framing their manifesto and political campaigns.
For instance, when it comes to the question of priorities between 2015 and 2018, there are conspicuous shifts that informed the political landscape in KZN.
While jobs have remained the number one priority to be addressed between the two time periods, fighting corruption and education did not feature in 2015.
But in 2018 fighting corruption and provision of education has emerged as an important matter that KZN citizens are concerned by.
The data is so rich and can be broken down not only by municipality but by race and age.
We only provide age breakdown in this regard.
Would one then wonder why the KZN leadership of the ruling party decided recently that they would not put forward anyone fingered for misdeed?
The people have spoken, and they have forced on them a very clear message that fighting corruption is a priority.
Sadly, despite efforts to show other provinces that unbiased public feedback is a rock-bed for democracy, little or no co-operation was forthcoming from them when I approached them as the statistician-general then.
This left my successor, Maluleke, in the unenviable position of information asymmetries on this crucial aspect that could deepen democracy in South African. KZN chose the highway.
Dr Pali Lehohla is the former Statistician-General of South Africa and the former head of Statistics South Africa.