Service delivery, jobs and economy are SA's main worries, says Ipsos poll

The biggest worries for South Africans are service delivery, job creation and government mismanaging the economy, according to a Ipsos poll released on Tuesday.

"It is clear that, although the situation is marginally better than a year ago and South Africans are still determined to be optimistic about where they will be this time next year, they are still of the opinion that the issues of service delivery, job creation and a host of other relevant issues need serious attention from government," Ipsos said.

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The results come a day before finance minister Tito Mboweni delivers his budget speech on Wednesday - and has to do so in the context of load-shedding and with troubles at Eskom and other state-owned enterprises dominating the headlines.

Respondents were asked if they believe he is handling policy issues "very well", "fairly well", "not very well", "not at all well", or "no comment".

Just under four in 10 (38%) say the government is managing the economy very or fairly well, while almost six in 10 disagree (59%).

"This is a vast improvement from the previous year's data (November 2017) when only 25% thought that the government was managing the economy well," Ipsos found.

Less than half (44%) of South Africans eligible to vote say the government is dealing with service delivery well but more than half (53%) believe it is faltering.

Just under three in 10 South Africans believe the country is heading in the right direction.

"We have come a long way since November 2017, when two thirds (66%) of adult South Africans believed the country was moving in the wrong direction," Ipsos said.

Just over a fifth (22%) believe that family life is better in SA than a decade ago, the same percentage (22%) think it is worse, while the bulk (56%) think it's the same.

"Delving a bit deeper into the views of supporters of different political parties, we see that a quarter of supporters of both the ANC and the DA (24% and 26% respectively) feel that they are better off than before, while supporters of the EFF are more despondent, with almost a quarter (24%) saying that their families are worse off than a year ago."

When asked where their families' lives will be next year, three in 10 say things will improve. DA supporters were more optimistic with almost four in 10 (38%) thinking things will improve, followed by ANC supports (33%) and EFF supporters (28%).

Ipsos interviewed 3,571 South Africans, 15 years and older, from October 23 to December 4 2018. They were randomly selected and interviewed face-to-face in their homes in their mother tongue in rural and urban areas. Once the data was filtered by those who were 18 years or older, the sample size was 3,445.