Last month, Africa Check published a column, which questioned the sourcing of various pre-election claims being made on Twitter by South Africa’s opposition Democratic Alliance (DA).
Many of the DA’s claims relate to its performance in the Western Cape, the only province in the country that is not held by the governing African National Congress. This report forms part of a series of fact-checks of leading political parties and politicians to be published by Africa Check in the run-up to the elections on May 7.
Claim:
“In the 2nd half of 2012/13, the WC Provincial Govt. created 60,000 work opportunities via the Expanded Public Works Projects.”
The DA’s former social media manager, Alex Molteno, said the claim was based on the Expanded Public Works Programme’s second quarterly report for 2012/13. But according to that report, 68,044 work opportunities were created in the Western Cape in the first half of 2012/13, not the second half as stated in the DA’s tweet.
If the claim was based on the first half of the year, then it understated performance. The third and fourth quarterly reports – which cover the second half of the year – have yet to be released and it is unclear how many work opportunities were created then.
Claim:
“Municipalities have created 31,000 job opportunities in the past year. “
This claim appears to have first been tweeted by Gavin Davis, the DA’s communications director, on 1 March 2013. It was then recycled by the DA, which tweeted it on several different dates including 18 September, 2 October, 18 November and 30 December 2013. The claim was also included in the party’s 2014 election manifesto, which was launched in February this year.
It is therefore unclear whether the claim refers to a calendar year, a financial year or a specific 12-month period. If it was the latter, then – given the fact that the tweet was used on several different dates – which 12-month period did it refer to?
According to the DA, the claim is supported by the Expanded Public Works Programme’s second quarterly report for 2012/13. But that report states that 18,104 work opportunities were created in Western Cape district and metropolitan municipalities between 1 April 2012 and 30 September 2013. A further 7,491 work opportunities were created during the same period in Western Cape local municipalities. Add them together and you get a total of 25, 595.
Claim:
W Cape has best delivery record in SA: 99.1% of households access piped water, 93.4% electricity & 96.9% have toilet facilities.
According to the DA, the claim is supported by data collected during South Africa’s 2011 national census. The census found that 99.1% of households in the Western Cape had access to piped water. Just behind the Western Cape was Gauteng province, where 98.2% of households were found to have had access to piped water.
According to the census, 93.4% of Western Cape households used electricity for lighting, compared to 91.1% in the Free State and 87.4% in Gauteng.
However, when it came to accessing toilets, the Western Cape slipped from first place. According to the census, 98.9% of Gauteng households had access to a toilet. In the Western Cape 96.9% of households had access to toilets.
(An earlier Africa Check report evaluated similar claims about water access made by the national government.)
Claim:
The City of Cape Town delivers more to poor residents than any other city in the country.
The DA says the claim is supported by a 2011 report on household access to basic services, which was compiled by the national government’s Department of Co-operative Government and Traditional Affairs.
The report, which in fact used data from 2009, ranked the City of Cape Town first in the country for providing services to households. It stated that 90% of households there had achieved basic service levels and 88% had achieved higher service levels.
It’s important to note that the report referred to “the levels of household access to basic service” throughout the city and did not refer specifically to poor residents.
Andre Bothma, the DA’s marketing director, told Africa Check that the claim was also supported by the City of Cape Town’s Mid-Year Review (2011-2013) which stated that “[t]he City of Cape Town has the best record of any metro in the country for providing basic services, and providing financial relief to the poor”.
However, the review provided no evidence or data to support the claim and it is unclear how it arrived at its conclusion that the city had the “best record of any metro in the country”.
The 2012 non-financial census of municipalities revealed that the Western Cape has the highest percentage of households in the country receiving free basic water, electricity and sewerage and sanitation.
We say: Not too shabby thus far. Read the full report at
