{"id":745305,"date":"2024-01-28T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-28T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=745305"},"modified":"2024-01-28T08:10:24","modified_gmt":"2024-01-28T06:10:24","slug":"south-africans-are-paying-more-for-less","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/745305\/south-africans-are-paying-more-for-less\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africans are paying more for less"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From 2019 to 2023, more South Africans have avoided using government services due to the state’s inability to deliver quality services despite paying more for the services every year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

PwC’s South African Economic Outlook 2024 outlined the major challenges facing businesses in the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report highlighted that financial troubles coupled with the growing demands on the state and available fiscal resources have put pressure on the government. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiscal revenues are under pressure in South Africa, as evidenced by years of budget deficits and rising public debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said he expects gross government debt to stabilise at 77% of GDP by 2025\/26, but this is higher than the level we forecasted in February (73.6%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The increase in government debt is especially concerning when we consider that, in 2009, debt was only 23% of GDP. According to budget projections, for every R1 the government spends, 22 cents are allocated to paying off debts, which is a significant rise from 7 cents in 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This, in turn, adds more challenges to public service delivery during a time of elevated socioeconomic strain. The public sector is overwhelmed and stretched in every direction to cope with these and other challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not surprisingly, the state is unable to deliver the quantity and quality of services that it previously could. As a result, the South African population\u2019s use of public services declined across the board between 2019 and 2023 and could continue on this trend in 2024.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is because many South Africans have turned to private companies – at considerable extra expense – that provide services similar to those expected of state institutions, such as private security, healthcare, education, and refuse services. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is on top of the rates and taxes the majority of South Africans pay for these services \u2013 which saw increases of between 5.3% for refuse removal and 15.1% for electricity in the 2023\/24 financial year \u2013 and will likely increase again in April this year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Compounding these rates is the immense expense of private medical aid to avoid the unreliable and often under-resourced public hospitals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cost of these plans ranges from R2,600 to over R10,000 per month under the biggest medical aid scheme in the country, and these have seen an increase of between 3% and 12.9% for the year ahead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These additional expenses are on top of the taxes South Africans pay for the same service – which they’re literally paying to actively avoid. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The degradation or failure of key state institutions, from hospitals to the police and education, has severe implications for the economy and well-being of South Africans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response, South Africans are turning away from government-run institutions and are simply not engaging with the public sector. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest Governance, Public Safety and Justice Survey published by Stats SA found that the share of adults using public hospitals in the 12 months declined 6.3% from 19.9% in 2019\/2020 to 13.6% in 2022\/2023. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This decline can be seen across all public sector services, including relatively well-run public institutions such as SARS. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Read: All the bank branches where you can get your Smart ID and passport in South Africa \u2013 more coming soon<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the past five years, South Africans have been dumping government services across the board – and paying to do it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":745323,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[2407,853],"class_list":["post-745305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-pwc","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=745305"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":745965,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745305\/revisions\/745965"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/745323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=745305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=745305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=745305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}