Social Services

Housing

A drive through the high rent districts of major urban areas reveals palatial homes on a par with those found anywhere. There is a wide choice in every price category, including clusters and golf estates. Even with rapid escalation of property values, properties are still less expensive than similar ones elsewhere in the world, and all modern conveniences are readily available.

Some 2.5 million households still live in such settlements and the number grows daily. A new Housing Development Agency has been created to fast-track applications and beat the red tape that has been known to delay building by three years.

Education

Time has shown that there is no such thing as a quick fix in education. Apartheid itself is outlawed, but the ravages inflicted by the policy permeate the system and the lives of pupils old and new.

HIV/Aids

Government's focus since 1994 is to bring primary health care to poorer people, especially those in rural areas. The betteroff have always been well-served by a sophisticated medical infrastructure provided in large part by private clinics which offer world-class services. Nothing has changed on that front, save that hospital costs rise year by year, to the consternation of the health authorities. Yet they remain lower than in many advanced countries.

Social Welfare

More than 12 million people - one in every four of the population - receive some sort of social grant from the Government, a staggering figure considering that a mere decade ago only about 3 million received this protection. Judging by the figures most needy by far were children, abandoned, orphaned by AIDS or otherwise neglected. The second most dependent group was the aged, two-thirds of whom rely wholly or partly on state aid. Historically, employers made scant provision for the retirement years of their black employees.