NEW STATISTICIAN-GENERAL MALULEKE GIVES THUMBS UP FOR MPUMALANGA POVERTY ERADICATION PROGRAMMES

25 October 2017

Statistician-General Maluleke delivered his maiden public presentation on crime and poverty statistics for Mpumalanga yesterday [Tuesday, 24 October 2017] at a two-day provincial executive council lekgotla in Mbombela.

The Statisticians-General said Mpumalanga currently has a population of 4.4 million people and life expectancy was now 60 years for males and 65 for females since 2015.

Mr Maluleke said in 2015, just more than a quarter of the population was living below the food poverty line. The poverty headcounts for Mpumalanga in 2006 were at 60.2 percent, however they reduced to 42.6 in 2015.

Mr Maluleke added that poverty in Mpumalanga hit hard on black young females who were living in the rural areas at 45 percent, whereas only 40 percent of those people were males.

Mr Maluleke explained that poor people living in rural areas were not only further away from the poverty line on average, but the poorest of the poor in those areas and are significantly worse off than their poor counterparts living in urban areas.

“A lot of people benefit from the social grants, and this is contributing towards reducing poverty, but generally, those who remain poor, still feel poor. Whatever Mpumalanga Provincial Government is doing in fighting poverty, it is doing it right, you must continue with your programmes of poverty eradication. There was a lot of improvement in this province in dealing with poverty,” said Statistician-General Maluleke.

He clarified that the drivers of poverty were unemployment, lack of education, lack of sanitation and lack of water amongst others.

He said Mpumalanga was unfortunanately not communicating its achievements, and according to the new Statistician-General, communications, public relations and marketing was not only the responsibility of the communicators, even politicians needed to communicate their good story in one voice.

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