Report: Almost half of South Africans chronically poor

This is according to a report tabled by the World Bank in Pretoria on Tuesday afternoon. 

The World Bank’s Victor Sulla says this rate is astonishingly high.

"Its very high. Half of the people are considered chronically poor or have average consumption below the upper bound poverty line”.

"78% person of South Africans were in poverty at least once during the 2008-2014/15," says Sulla.

The Minister in the Presidency for Planning Monitoring and Evaluation and Chairperson of the National Planning Commission, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, says the situation must now be addressed.

“It’s in a way disappointing but it is a fact that even though poverty has decreased, it remains extremely high. But it must then drive us in finding policies and implementation to make sure that it is brought down”.

“The issue of inequality also seems to be in an upward trajectory so it’s very worrying. It is not only extreme poverty that we must be concerned with, but poverty in general,”says Dlamini-Zuma.