As the EFF unveiled its 2024 election manifesto, Malema was keen to highlight the failures of the current government. Africa Check had a closer look at his claims.
Julius Malema’s claim that poverty in South Africa is worse in 2024 than in 1994 can’t be proven. Definitions of poverty and how it is measured vary widely, and up-to-date information on income and expenditure in the country is needed.
Africa Check fact-checked four key claims made in the document and found that the party was correct to claim that South Africa’s three wealthiest individuals have more wealth than the poorest 26 million South Africans. As with the manifesto, the EFF did not respond to our questions about the source of these claims. We will update this report if we hear back from the party.
But there are some limitations to bear in mind. For example, while the sample provides better coverage of large and randomly distributed populations, it might not provide adequate coverage of very small or clustered populations. The 2022 census found that 28,481 white people lived in informal housing, either in backyards or in informal settlements.
Poverty in South Africa is usually measured using poverty lines, although there are many other methods. Poverty lines are estimates of the amount of money a person needs each month to afford certain items to survive. The most recent poverty trends report was published in 2017 and includes poverty estimates for the years 2006 to 2015. It shows that in 2006, 66.6% of the population lived below the upper-bound poverty line. By 2015, the figure had fallen to 55.5%.
For example, data from the National Income Dynamics Study – a panel study conducted every two years since 2008 on the same 28,000 South Africans selected to represent the population – suggested that 25% of the population lived below the food poverty line in 2017. A 2018 assessment by the World Bank, which found that the poverty rate, as measured by the lower-bound poverty line, declined between 2006 and 2015 .
But these figures are now decades old. Since 1994, people of other races have acquired some of this land through private sales and loans. Exactly how much land has been transferred is unclear.
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