At least 2.2 million households in SA have skipped a meal in the last 12 months
While there has been a general increase in quality of life and poverty in South Africa, millions are still forced to skip meals because of money.
According to the results of the Community Survey, released in Pretoria on Thursday, at least 2.2 million South African households have skipped a meal in the 12 months leading up to the survey because there was not enough food.
Almost one in five households surveyed had run out of money to buy food in that time period.
Stats SA executive manager for social statistics, Isabelle Schmidt, said: “If the household normally had two meals, they would have skipped one. For those that normally have one meal a day, it means there was no meal.”
The Eastern Cape and the Northern Cape had the highest percentage of households who skipped a meal (17.5%) followed by Free State (15.7%), KwaZulu-Natal (14.8%), Mpumalanga (14.8%), Limpopo (12.9%), Gauteng (10.8%) and the Western Cape (8.4%).
The survey showed that most provinces reported a decline in poverty levels between 2011 and 2016, but poverty increased from 10.1% to 11.5% in Limpopo. The Western Cape with 2.7% had the lowest rate.
The number of households with no access to piped water also increased from 1.3 million to 1.7 million.
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