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Lifting the hem of the mini-skirt

Failure to accurately measure delivery is a risk

IN AN attempt to dismiss reported baby deaths at Frere Hospital in the Eastern Cape a few years ago, then president Thabo Mbeki drew the nation's attention to the phenomenon of the mini-skirt.

He wrote that in the 1960s mini-skirts achieved their high point as an indispensable item of fashion.

At the height of this craze, statisticians, without any sense of embarrassment, spread the notion that the product of their trade - statistics - were like mini-skirts in that they showed or suggested more than they revealed.

What this meant, Mbeki wrote, was that "one had to use one's head to visualise what lay beyond the hem of the mini-skirt to arrive at the reality suggested by the mini-skirt".

I can almost hear some cynics questioning the wisdom of referring to a mini-skirt when the Kanga, and what it suggests, has since become the real deal. Well, that's another matter.

Mbeki was also well known for questioning unemployment statistics. He once dismissed Stats SA's statistics showing that there were 4.4 million unemployed South Africans in 2004. Mbeki asked: Who would have missed these millions in the streets and paths looking for work in all likely places of employment?

But even as he questioned statistics that showed what he didn't like, Mbeki took the glory when statisticians said what he wanted to hear - be it on economic growth or the number of households who benefited from government services.

Whenever the government wants to boast about delivery of services, in the pre- and post-Kanga era, statistics are often bandied about. The common prefix is "Since 1994..."

This is followed by the usual so many millions of households have access to water, so many millions have access to proper sanitation and a number of other millions have RDP houses. The list goes on.

But the reality of what people face is less tantalising than what the mini-skirt represents. Let's look at a few cases. In the village of Dipateng in Botlokwa, Limpopo, people risk life and limb daily to cross the N1 freeway, pushing wheelbarrows to fetch water.

Water taps have run dry and residents are forced to walk kilometres to fetch water sourced from a borehole. In some cases they have to buy water for R25 per 200l container.

Vusi Ramusi, a concerned resident in the area that forms part of the Capricorn district, said he noticed a worrying trend about water scarcity in the area. "We feel we are being taken for a ride because each time we approach elections, water comes to us in bulk, but soon thereafter it's back to square one," he told the Sowetan.

This raises the question: At what point do the government's water delivery statistics count? During elections or soon thereafter?

In the Mpumalanga town of Carolina, households and businesses have taps that produce something that looks like oil.

"The colour changes quickly when you've added soap or bleach. It becomes brown and the particles start looking like oil," said Malihle Thwala, a resident. The last time they had clean water was six months ago.

In Botshabelo, Free State, residents have to walk about 2km to fetch filthy water in nearby wells and streams.

As a Sowetan reporter found to his shock, they share the water with cows, sheep and frogs. The local municipality said the taps ran dry because pipes had burst. Residents claim the problem is ongoing.

One wonders whether during this period the hundreds of thousands of people who live in Carolina and Botshabelo were removed from the "Since 1994 ..." delivery statistics.

The fact that the delivery statistics are always increasing suggests there are no adjustments to take into account such dramatic reversals of service delivery.

The same applies to the statistics about the delivery of houses. Every now and then we are told so many millions of houses have been built for the poor.

We are told how these have helped deal with what the government calls "asset poverty". But Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale recently told Parliament his department had spent R400-million fixing shoddy RDP houses built since 2002.

When the "Since 1994 ..." statistics are quoted by government officials, they do not say whether they include the number of those houses which were never habitable from the start.

Failure to accurately measure the delivery of services leads to several risks. Government leaders could be misleading themselves in harping on a less than accurate service delivery record. It could also serve to shield shoddy tenderpreneurs contracted to delivery services.

This could result in wrong policy choices. Where quoted astronomical figures are not matched with reality this could result in public cynicism about service delivery.

Lack of trust in the government service delivery record could reduce the legitimacy quotient of the government among people.

The last thing any self-respecting government wants is to be accurately described by citizens as a liar.

What, then, is the solution?

The most important thing is to first turn up the hem of the mini-skirt.

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