As formations to unseat the ruling party ahead of the 2024 general elections begin to take shape, claims are being made about what the opposition says is the poor state of the country. Are they all correct?
Claim
Six claims about unemployment, crime and voter registration in
Verdict
One misleading, two understated, three incorrect.
Source
South African opposition parties (
According to our calculations,
The DA was also wrong about how many South Africans can be shown to be currently unemployed and fuzzy on the details when discussing the number of "young people" out of work.
With elections looming in 2024,
The initiative includes the
At a national convention in
Briefing the media on the first day of the convention, opposition leaders made a number of claims about the state of the country. We checked six of them.
(Note: At the time of publishing, the DA had not responded to questions about the sources of its claims. We will update this when we hear back)
Claim
"Over 50% of South Africans are out of work." - Siviwe Gwarube, DA
Verdict
Incorrect
Highlighting some of the issues to be discussed at the convention, DA chief whip Siviwe Gwarube said that over half of South Africans were out of work.
Gwarube did not define the term "out of work", and it doesn't have a formal definition. The term most commonly used and measured in this context is "unemployment".
Statistics
The most recent edition of
This may be closer to what people think of when they hear the phrase "out of work", but even
Gwarube's claim that "over 50% of South Africans are out of work" is therefore incorrect.
Also on unemployment,
The last time
Claim
"Seven out of 10 young people are without work." - Siviwe Gwarube, DA
Verdict
Misleading
We also checked a claim by Gwarube that "seven out of 10 young people are without work".
It is true that younger South Africans are more likely to be unemployed. In the second quarter of 2023, 60.7% of the population aged 15 to 24 was unemployed. For those aged 25 to 34, the figure was 39.8%.
By the expanded definition of unemployment, 70.1% of those aged 15 to 24 were considered unemployed. The rate was 49.1% for the 25 to 34 age group.
This would make for an unemployment rate of less than 70.1% for anyone officially considered "young" (aged 15 to 34). So while the claim may be accurate in the context of NEETs, it is misleading to say that seven out of 10 young people are without work.
Claim
"A woman is raped every 30 seconds" in
Verdict
Incorrect
Citing various statistics on the state of the country, Mashaba claimed that a woman was raped every 30 seconds.
We have debunked similar claims before, including that a woman is raped every 36 and 26 seconds in
If accurate, this rate would amount to about 1.05 million rapes a year, more than 25 times the number reported in 2021/22 by the South African police (Saps). A total of 41,739 rapes (not broken down by gender) were reported to the Saps that year.
Of course, the figure reported to police does not reflect the true number of rapes for many reasons. According to South African thinktank the
Without accurate police data, the rate of under-reporting is sometimes used to calculate the "true" number of rapes (like in previous claims we have fact-checked). But even this is difficult to estimate.
As
The same is true of a 2014 study conducted in the Western Cape province, which found a reporting rate of 2%. A nationally representative study attempted to estimate the rate in 1998 and came to 15%, but this was limited to a specific age group and is even more outdated.
ISS gender specialist
While accurate statistics are important, there are other issues to consider, according to Gorata Chengeta, a sexual violence researcher who previously spoke to
"We can tackle things like harmful social attitudes about gender, the lack of access to comprehensive sex education, corruption, widespread violence, and unequal access to education, social services, and medical care," she said.
Claim
"82 people are being murdered each day in our country." -
Verdict
Incorrect
Mashaba went on to claim that 82 people were murdered in
The article quoted Saps statistics from the third quarter of 2022/23, which covered the period from October to
However, there have been two quarterly crime statistics releases since this publication. Saps released crime statistics for the fourth quarter of 2022/23 in May, months before Mashaba's address. These covered the period January to
Days after Mashaba's speech, Saps released crime statistics for the first quarter of 2023/24, covering April to
While an average of 82 murders per day was accurate at the beginning of 2023, it is outdated. More recent statistics have been available since May.
Comparing like with like
But comparing different quarters to one another may not provide the best picture, says violent crime researcher
For example, since the third quarter of the year includes the Christmas holidays, when there is generally more interpersonal violence, comparing the number of murders with the quarter before or after it may not give an accurate general picture, she said.
Comparing the same quarters allows us to see the trends. In this case, the third quarter of 2022/23 is better compared to the same period in 2021/22. This shows a 10% increase (from 6,859 in 2021/22 to 7,555 in 2022/23).
Claim
"There are 14 million South Africans who have not voted in the last two elections." -
Verdict
Understated
Urging South Africans to register to vote in the 2024 election, DA leader
Of the 26.7 million people who registered to vote, only 17,671,616 actually went to the polls. This is a difference of 9.08 million.
In the 2014 national election, 25,390,150 people registered to vote. But this was only 80.8% of all those eligible to vote then. This means that 4.87 million more people could have voted but did not register.
Of the 25.39 million people who registered to vote, only 18,654,771 turned up at the polls. This is a difference of 6.73 million.
The combined figure of those who did not vote is 15.81 million, so Steenhuisen missed a chance to show that the problem was bigger.
We rate his claim as understated.
Claim
"There are 13 million South Africans who are not registered to vote." -
Verdict
Understated
Moving to current statistics, Steenhuisen said there were 13 million South Africans who were not registered to vote.
How does this compare to the number of people eligible to vote?
According to
But the legal voting age in
He said
Compared to the number of voters currently registered, there is a difference of 14.1 million.
Steenhuisen's claim is therefore understated.
Copyright Africa Check. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com)., source