About this site

This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. It is the product of almost two decades of research and includes analyses, chronologies, historical documents, and interviews from the apartheid and post-apartheid eras.

Poverty

Bureau for Market Research figures indicate that in 1989 40% of the South African population was living below the minimum living level (MLL). The MLL is a measure of the smallest amount of money on which people can live.

At least 18-million of South Africa's population fall below the MLL and between eight and nine million blacks are "completely destitute". Achieving minimum living standards for the whole population (basic education, adult education and training, primary health care, housing, electrification, rural development, access to land, small business development, social security, welfare, telecommunication, transport, water and sanitation) will cost R57-billion over the next five years.

(Source: Professor Wiseman Nkuhlu, chairman of the Development Bank of Southern Africa, quoted in Cape Times, October 22 1993).

This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. Return to theThis resource is hosted by the site.