With Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan set to deliver the budget on Wednesday, a survey has found that 78.7% of South Africans believe that "the people in government are incompetent and corrupt and are indeed to blame for the poor state of the economy". The survey was conducted by Good Governance Africa and its findings form part of a report on public perceptions of the government titled "What the People Really Think".It is due to be published in the March/April edition of the organisation's journal, Africa in Fact.Another key finding is that 56.2% of respondents agreed that "people are giving up hope that the government will listen to them". Some 29.7% disagreed with the statement, while 14.2% said they did not know or refused to answer.story_article_left1"Our view is that the findings are seismic; less than 15% of participants regard the government as completely accountable, while close on 80% perceive the government to be incompetent and corrupt, and to blame for the poor economy," said Dr Alain Tschudin, executive director of Good Governance Africa.Only 12.4% of the respondents agreed that "the people in government are generally competent and not corrupt. Other factors have caused the economy to falter." A resounding 78.7% believed that poor governance was responsible for the state of the economy.Broken down by race, 76.8% of black, 84.9% of coloured, 85.3% of white and 89.8% of Asian respondents agreed with the statement that incompetence and corruption in government were to blame for the state of the economy. The survey was done in September last year, before President Jacob Zuma fired Nhlanhla Nene as finance minister in December, precipitating a downturn in the value of the rand and, it is estimated, wiping billions off the stock market.All respondents were asked to rate the government's performance on key indicators. The responses were :• Employment: 12.2% were positive, 70.1% negative and 16.4% neutral;• Pensions: 50.5% positive, 30.5% negative, 15.8% neutral;• Social grants: 61.2% positive, 21.6% negative, 14.5% neutral;• Education: 36.1% positive, 43.6% negative, 18.7% neutral;• Health: 31.4% positive, 45.9% negative, 21.4% neutral;• Law and order: 16.5% positive; 56.7% negative; 24% neutral; and• Equality for women: 33.7% positive, 31.7% negative, 31.1% neutral.The difference for each indicator is made up of respondents who did not know or refused to answer.The government's delivery of pensions and social grants found favour with 50.5% and 61.2% of respondents respectively. "Thumbs-down scores predominate for education and health. Employment lies in lowest place, at 70.1% negative, and law and order second-lowest, with some 57% holding a negative view," said Tschudin.Good Governance Africa commissioned seven questions as part of a Markdata survey conducted between August 24 and September 30 2015.Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 2245 respondents. Because sampling was carried out in stages using sampling units of diminishing size at each stage, a margin of error was not calculated. The survey, which did not differentiate between voters and nonvoters, was weighted by gender, age, province, and race. The rural component was 32.2%...