It has been a stormy year in South African politics. We look back at our fact-checks of dodgy data, political spin, false claims, bogus qualifications and a bizarre conspiracy.
Did the facts about unemployment in South Africa get sidelined during the debate that followed President Jacob Zuma’s State of the Nation address? We took a look at the claims and counter-claims.
South Africa’s ruling African National Congress says it has a “good story to tell” ahead of the May 7 general election. This is the second of two reports evaluating key election claims.
The African National Congress has been in power in South Africa for twenty years. In the run-up to the May 7 election, it says it has a “good story to tell” about its performance over that period. This is the first of two reports evaluating key claims.
Kgalema Motlanthe has claimed that the percentage of households with children that have gone hungry “at some point” has fallen from “over 25%” in 1994 to 6.5% in 2012. The claim is incorrect.
An official curriculum vitae for Thandi Modise, the controversial Premier of South Africa’s North West province, contains a number of false claims and glaring factual inaccuracies, Africa Check has discovered.
A Facebook post that went viral in 2013 made a series of claims about how South Africa has changed since 1994. Africa Check tested the evidence.
President Jacob Zuma claimed recently that more than a million South African households have been connected to electricity over the past five years. But, as Africa Check found, the source for the claim is unclear and numbers provided by different government departments vary significantly.
The ANC has claimed that 36-million South Africans have been given access to sanitation since 1994. If it were true, it would be a staggering achievement. But the claim is exaggerated.
The leader of the African National Congress in South Africa’s Western Cape Province has claimed that 98% of landowners in the city of Cape Town are white and “people in the Jewish community”. But, as Africa Check discovered, South African property records only listed the race of owners prior to 1994 and not their religion.