South Africa is moving backwards in key development areas such as economics and safety and security, says the Democratic Alliance (DA).
”When considering year-by-year positions on various indices, South Africa is actually backsliding rather than improving,” says a DA survey, launched by DA parliamentary leader Sandra Botha on Thursday.
The document, titled Truth and Denial, contrasts ruling party claims about the country’s development with figures from international comparative surveys.
Among other things, it shows that according to the United Nations Human Development Index — which takes into account a wide range of factors such as adult literacy and GDP per capita — South Africa has been slowly slipping down the rankings since 2001.
In that year, the country was ranked 94th out of 162 surveyed. Last year, it was 121st out of 177.
Further, the Global Competitiveness Index, published by the World Economic Forum, ranked South Africa 45th in 2006/07, compared with 40th the year before.
”Contrary to the expressed statements of the African National Congress (ANC), South Africa is becoming less economically competitive,” the DA document says.
It also examines the seventh United Nations Survey of Crime Trends, for the period 1998 to 2000, which shows the crime level in South Africa at that time was such that one in 12 people was a victim.
Botha — speaking at a parliamentary media briefing — said this was ”very close to the position as it is today, in terms of South African statistics”.
The public at least was very certain the crime situation was out of control, and, she said, there was a definite increase in the number of people who were emigrating because of this.
”I’m hoping that [the] 2010 [Soccer World Cup] will see an improvement in crime, because if it doesn’t, every hope that we have of 2010 placing us under the spotlight in terms of an investment and tourism destination … won’t happen,” she warned.
The DA survey also looks at the 2007 Global Peace Index — maintained by the international affairs publication, the Economist — that ranks South Africa 99th out of 121 nations examined for their ”absence of violence”.
Commenting on this, Botha said South Africa, which cast itself as the ”peacemaker of the continent”, appeared to be a country at war with itself.
The survey says the ANC government ”presents a glowing picture” of what South Africa looked like in terms of human and economic development, safety and security and education.
However, the studies showed a very different picture to the one posited by the ANC, it says. — Sapa