allAfrica.com: South Africa: Freedom Day Highlights Govt Strides For a Better Life (Page 1 of 2)

As South Africans celebrate 14 years of Freedom on Sunday, Bathandwa Mbola took to the streets to get a glimpse of what citizens felt about government's strides to create a better life for all.

While the South African government is still transforming from a divided and bitter past, millions of lives have been transformed since 1994.

Government has made great strides to eradicate apartheid's legacy of poverty, inequality, unemployment and racism. The progress of transformation can be measured in dignity restored; in the broadening of access to basic services previously denied to most.

Towards the Freedom Day celebrations, BuaNews took to the streets to ask ordinary citizens if their lives have been transformed since 1994. The Mabaso's from block six Atteridgeville in Pretoria are one of the many families who have benefited from governments many initiatives to improve lives of ordinary citizens.

Two years ago the family of six moved to their newly built RDP house. "I will never forget the day we first moved to our new home. It was the happiest day of our lives ... I never thought that one day I would have keys to a proper and decent house," Elisa Mabaso, 43, told BuaNews. Asked if government's initiatives to improve lives of South Africans showed results, Ms Mabaso answered positively. "For me I am seeing results, as a self employed mother of four I could not afford to build or buy a decent home for my kids," she said, although the wait was long.

So far the Housing Department has built more than 2 355 913 decent houses with water, electricity for ordinary South Africans. This has led to the proportion of South African households living in informal dwellings decreasing from 16.4 percent in 2001 to 14.4 percent in 2007.

Ms Mabaso works at her family's public phone business and at a mini tuck shop. "At least my kids don't go to bed on empty stomachs. The grant I get for my disabled child also goes a long way," she said, adding that she cannot wait for government to do everything for her. The provision of social grants is one of government's biggest poverty relief programme and this year's additional social assistance cost amounts to R12 billion over the next three years.

The total number of grant beneficiaries is 12.4 million, and expenditure on social assistance will be R75.3 billion in 2009. "Our government has many issues to address and I cannot wait for it to come and put food on the table ... opportunities are out there and people must explore them." Moreover Ms Mabaso said if government could speed up on implementing its services things would be even better. "When I read the newspapers I see that there are opportunities and people at the grassroots don't often know or hear about them. I think they [government] should come to us instead of reading about them."

Ms Mabasso further noted the number of unemployed youth in her area. "Our children have completed their matric, some with good marks but they are sitting at home. If they could open up more opportunities for them, things would be better." In education government has opened doors to the youth; created economic opportunities and further advances which have improved the lives of communities.

Thabo Seti, 20, an Information Technology second year student at Tshwane University of Technology has benefited from a government's National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS). NSFAS was established as a conduit for funding to help ensure that historically disadvantaged students with academic ability could embark on higher education studies.

"I am not sure I would pursue my career if it wasn't for this fund. It's been a blessing to my life and I'm grateful."

Asked where he had heard about NSFAS, Mr Seti said he went to the institution for information on bursaries.

"I had to go out and ask because at the end it was my future, I could not wait for someone else to go out and ask for myself.

"It's helping a lot of us who cannot go to school because of financial problems at home," he told BuaNews, adding that the funds have helped him achieve his goals.

Other South Africans who were interviewed by BuaNews had concerns about the pace of delivering of government's services, unemployment, poverty, racism attacks, high crime levels and electricity shortages.

However government is in a process of addressing these challenges.

For example the latest Labour Force Survey, conducted in September 2007 by Stats SA , finds that the country's unemployment rate decreased to 23 percent in the third quarter of 2007, down from 25.5 percent in the previous year - a record low since the inception of the survey in 2001.

The data also shows that while the total labour force had dipped slightly to 17.18 million people, from 17.19 million in the third quarter of 2006, the total of number of employed South Africans in September last year was approximately 13.2 million, which indicates a net gain of 433 000 jobs.

web allafrica.com	Enter your search terms	Submit search form
OR subscribers use AllAfrica's premium search engine


Use our pull-down menus to find more stories

Today's Most Active Stories