\u2705 Results:<\/strong> Last week\u2019s poll on powering South Africa Have a wonderful weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alastair <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Once cash was the only way to pay for anything. Electronic banking changed that so that using cash has become increasingly rare. For some, though, cash is still the default for everyday spending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to the South African Reserve Bank\u2019s Cost of Cash Study 2026<\/a>, more than 70% of people surveyed use cash at least once a week, and one third of them use it every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More than half of people earning R1,250 or less a month only spend cash while 1% of those making R20,000+ a month only pay with cash. Reliance on cash steadily drops as incomes rise and use of electronic banking increases. For wealthier households, cash is used together with electronic banking, while for the poorest, it\u2019s the only option.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to the study, those earning R1,250 a month or less spend 5% of their annual income just on getting and using cash. While high income households spend just 1.2%<\/p>\n\n\n\n Part of this cost is banking fees, but there are hidden costs too: time lost to travel and queueing, and money spent on transport, particularly for the poor who rely on taxis. Then there is greater exposure to crime that comes with carrying cash, which is far easier to steal than money in a bank account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These indirect costs fall hardest on lower-income households. They often live far from banks and ATMs, and often make multiple small withdrawals. These costs quickly add up for low income earners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you need cash, where you get it makes a big difference. It costs R1.53 on average per R100 that you take out. The same R100 costs R0.68 at ATMs and only R0.12 as cash-back at a shop till.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That makes branch withdrawals almost 13 times more expensive than cash-back, and an ATM five times more expensive than cash-back. For someone that draws cash often, that difference adds up over the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The catch is access. Cash-back is only an option at shops that offer it, and many small, local businesses that cater to low-income communities may not offer it. Making cash-back more widely available could be one way of bringing down the cost of cash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Public primary schools with fewer than 135 learners are classified as ‘micro’ schools. Many of these are in the deep rural and poorest parts of the country. In the Eastern Cape, for example, about four in every 10 primary schools fall into the micro category.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Research by the Department of Basic Education finds that these small schools have worse academic outcomes and more dilapidated infrastructure than larger schools, and so government\u2019s current emphasis is to close them. The research found that 77% of micro primary schools have learners at different grades in a single class, which places a huge burden on these teachers. Nearly half of these small schools were found to be in a severe state of disrepair, particularly the water and sanitation infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In some provinces, like the Free State, Mpumalanga, Northern Cape and North West, there have been substantial drops in the percentage of small primary schools, but simply closing small schools can be very disruptive, particularly if there isn\u2019t an alternative school close by, so these schools will need to continue to be supported, notes the DBE research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Produced in collaboration with The Education Desk<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Everyone wants to feel safe when they are walking alone in their own neighbourhood, but unfortunately that\u2019s not the case for more than half of South African citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although most people feel safe walking alone in broad daylight, once the sun goes down the fear factor goes up. With the exception of Limpopo that only has 30.9% of people feeling unsafe at night, at least 61% of South Africans feel unsafe walking alone at night. Women are also seen the be more afraid to walk alone: 66.2% at night and 20.2% in the day, compared to 61.5% of men that feel unsafe at night and 17.7% during the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the Western Cape has the highest feelings of being unsafe during the day at 30.1% and Gauteng has the highest feeling of being unsafe at night at 73.1%, Limpopo is significantly lower with only 2% feeling unsafe during the day and 30.9% at night, meaning that Limpopo is perceived as the safest province in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Most South African households now have piped water. In 2025, 76% had a tap inside their home or on their property, according to Stats SA\u2019s General Household Survey<\/em>. But in 2025, more than a third of households also had water outages lasting at least two days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The main reason for the outages is old, poorly maintained pipes that leak and burst. Cape Town had the smallest share of households reporting long outages, at 8%. eThekwini had the largest, at 44%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A lot of water is lost before it ever reaches people\u2019s taps, from leaks and illegal connections, or it is simply never billed, according to the Auditor-General.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The losses are expensive. National Treasury\u2019s latest review of municipal finances found that the metros together lost nearly R8.7-billion worth of water in the 2023\/24 financial year. Nationally, the share of water lost or never paid for (non-revenue water) rose from 37% in 2014 to 47% in 2023, according to the No Drop report. The international average is about 30%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \ud83d\ude4f Produced in partnership with<\/em> GroundUp News<\/em><\/strong>.<\/em> Read the full story<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\ud83d\udc51 Cash is still king
\ud83c\udfe7 Poll: How do we prefer to pay?
\ud83d\udeb8 Closing small schools
\ud83d\udc6e\ud83c\udffd\u200d\u2642\ufe0f How safe do you feel?
\ud83d\udca7 Water interruptions
\u2753 News quiz<\/p>\n\n\n\n
alastair@theoutlier.co.za<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\ud83d\udcb5 Taking notes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n\ud83c\udfe0 Class action<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n\ud83d\udd26 Fear factor<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n\ud83d\udeb0 Water waste<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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