by Cameron Dugmore
In the race to swing popular opinion before an election, it’s only reasonable for the populace to expect that any written arguments presented are factually correct. And if you’re making televised points on a public stage then it’s even more important not to cherrypick data that suits your agenda.
And if you’re flighting a controversial TV ad that involves burning the national flag, and then claim innocence by saying oh, it’s not real, it’s paper – and look, it is restored again, then you are toying with people’s strongly held principles and beliefs.
And if you pop up with a petulant tirade that calls other perfectly legitimate parties, that are conducting business soberly, “mercenaries” then you’re kicking nasty mud around the basics of democracy.
And if you do all three of the above, you end up looking as if you’re scrabbling for feel-good data, are callous about precious and unifying symbols and engaging in a nauseating and undemocratic baaskap.
Africa Check, on May 7, undertook an examination of points made on stage by DA leader, Steenhuisen, as follows: “Life under the DA in the Western Cape: fact-checking South African opposition party’s claims about governance”.
While this is a vital example of the old saying “there are lies, damned lies and statistics”, it’s more than just a data-usage warning about:
1. Making statements when there is insufficient evidence.
2. Using raw data to draw conclusions by making links that aren’t valid.
3. And using a data set that has too many variables (as in the case of employment data, where the preferred definition is “absorption” – see below for more).
The point is that the data chosen, to imply that the Western Cape only has a 20% unemployment level, a) is a dipstick figure on a sample at a given date, and b) uses information that incorrectly excludes people who are unemployed and want to work as being “unemployed”.
The casual reader or audience member then runs with the 80% “employed” figure in their heads, whereas, using the more holistic definition – ie, absorption – the figure was 54.7% in the particular quarter when that information was drawn.
Now when an academic or a statistician wrangles this data, it’s different from when it’s used as a massive political push. The DA push is that the Western Cape economy is booming and joblessness is on the decrease.
In point of fact, the economy of the Western Cape will boom, and indeed also boomed, under an ANC government, because of its natural features. It has an accommodating climate, good farming conditions, magnificent scenic features (including a long coastline and mountains), botanic uniqueness, historical significance, and offers a strategic port at the so-called tip of Africa.
Apartheid spatial malevolence has claimed beachfront and other leafy suburb property for prestige development. This is not a consequence of DA work.
What the DA does NOT claim are the crime (murder, rape, kidnap, robbery, extortion) statistics, the poverty and deprivation levels, the troubling health (eg TB) data.
Gangs are not unique to the Western Cape but they are prevalent in certain areas. It’s no good rattling off gangs as a phenomenon if there’s a failure to work them out of the system.
Here’s an example of the use of a dipstick statistic. National data for the third quarter of 2023/24 shows that 21 Western Cape police stations appear in the list of the top 30 crime hot spots for that period. That’s 70% of the police stations in a 3-month period which had high numbers of crimes reported were Western Cape police stations.
It’s not 70% of all crimes. Nevertheless, it’s a fact that crime lists for the country will always have the Western Cape, and especially the City of Cape Town, listed. The Western Cape is second only to KZN as a crime capital in recent data.
Crime is not, as the DA in the Western Cape might like to present it, a failure of the policing system. Crime is a symptom. It’s a symptom in this case of poverty, unemployment and of a weak education system.
In the course of boasting about all the successes in the Western Cape, the DA silence on the deterioration of their own education system in the Western Cape is a very telling one.
Surely education is the best ticket out of poverty and unemployment and towards securing a viable place in the economy? Yet this province’s matric pass rate has slumped, taking it from its position as top province in 2008 (the first year of the current Senior Certificate dispensation), to 5th in the country in 2023.
In fact, its 2023 pass rate of 81.54% is only just ahead of the Eastern Cape at 81.42%, with only 0.12% separating 5th and 6th place on this list.
In 2008 the Western Cape was 16.5% above the national average and in 2023 it placed 1.4% below the national average. (Source: Department of Basic Education)
In a slice of this deteriorating phenomenon, the situation in regard to passes in maths in schools in quintiles 1 – 4 in general, and quintile 4 schools in 2023 in particular, is a cause for worry. Most of the schools in Mitchells Plain, for example, are quintile 4 schools. Quintile 5 schools are located in the richest communities.
| 2008 Matric Pass Rate | 2023 Matric Pass Rate | |
| Western Cape | 78,7% | 81,5% |
| National | 62,2% | 82,9 |
Source: DBE figures
In a slice of this deteriorating phenomenon, the situation in regard to passes in Maths in schools in Quintiles 1 – 4 in general, and Quintile 4 schools in 2023 in particular, is a cause for worry. Most of the schools in Mitchells Plain, for example, are Quintile 4 schools. Quintile 5 schools are located in the richest communities.
| 2019 | 2021 | 2023 | |
| Quintile 1 | 28.6% | 27.5% | 19.6% |
| Quintile 2 | 26.3% | 29.6% | 26.3% |
| Quintile 3 | 27.6% | 32.5% | 27.9% |
| Quintile 4 | 27.7% | 30.2% | 15.8% |
| Quintile 5 | 59.6% | 62.3% | 54.3% |
It is important to note the distribution of languages by mother tongue in the Western Cape. The 2023 figures (source: southafrica-info.com) are Afrikaans 49.7%, isiXhosa 24.7% and English 20.3%. This means that 70% of school-going children are being schooled in their mother tongue from Grade R/1 to Grade 12.
This should provide an inherent advantage for learners in this province. How does this not show up in their results?
The gleeful (all publicity is good publicity – we meant to cause a shake-up) defence by the DA to the horrified response of South Africans to the TV advert is symptomatic of the same misplaced and dismissive arrogance, which allows a national party leader to accuse other political parties participating in elections as mercenaries, who are only in it to lay their greedy hands on the cash supplies in the Western Cape, and are a further manifestation of a party that thinks it must “Rescue South Africa”.
The ANC stands for a programme of solid further development of the local economy and a targeted programme that will improve the lot of all of those who have been politically neglected by the expedient DA over the last 15 years.
The damage that has been done is clear and the path ahead will be tough, but together with our national departments, we can put the province on a solid footing again.
* Cameron Dugmore is the ANC leader of the opposition in the Western Cape Provincial Legislature.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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