The Gauteng Provincial Government welcomes the results of the Gauteng City Region Observatory’s (GCRO) survey on the Quality of Life in the Gauteng City Region.

Premier David Makhura said he was pleased with the results that showed continuing improvement in the quality of life index over time and that access to basic services remained high.

The results were launched on Wednesday, 13 November 2018 at the University of Johannesburg in Auckland Park.  

Makhura said the Quality of Life Survey helps government to inform policy-making and evidenced-based governance across the Gauteng City Region.

“Specifically, the survey has become one of the most comprehensive and reliable instruments to measure citizens’ satisfaction and perceptions on governance, service delivery, socio-economic development and the quality of life among the people of Gauteng.

“The quality of life index shows sustained improvement in the quality of life and increase in levels of satisfaction with national, provincial and local government. Measured as a whole through a ‘Quality of Life Index’ made up of 58 different variables, overall quality of life in Gauteng has increased from 6.02 in 2011 to 6.30 in 2018,” said Makhura.

He also noted that there has been significant increases in residents’ satisfaction with all spheres of government since the last survey was done. For instance, with regards to the provincial government; 45% of respondents are satisfied with the provincial government compared to 39% in the 2016 Survey.

GCRO Executive Director, Dr Rob Moore said despite continued high levels of population and household growth in Gauteng, the survey showed that levels of access to services have remained stable.

“Access to piped water to homes and yards has remained above 90% over the decade that the survey has been conducted.  This tells us that government is broadly keeping pace with increases in demand for service connections. However, there are signs that provision of services has deteriorated significantly in some municipalities, while delivery has improved in others. This reflects in different levels of satisfaction with local government,” said Dr Moore.

Premier Makhura said government has a responsibility not to dig its face in the sand but to do something about the negative results coming out of the survey.
 
He noted that crime was now the number one concern, followed by unemployment and drug abuse.

“Whereas a great deal of work is being done at national, provincial and city level to deal with investment and economic recovery as well as housing delivery, a lot more needs to be done to address crime and drugs. We need a fresh start in crime prevention,” said the premier.  

We appreciate the work done by the GCRO. These results are going to inform our decisions and policies. We will now use these results to improve the quality of life of people of Gauteng and change the perceptions that people have of government.

 
Issued by Gauteng Provincial Government