🔒 Andrea Rademeyer: 70% of SAs favour alcohol ban

Andrea Rademeyer is the chief executive and founder of Ask Afrika, a market research company. Rademeyer has conducted about 7,000 interviews since the beginning of lockdown, She shares valuable insight and statistics. These range from the decrease in ratings scored by President Ramaphosa to the quite surprising majority of 70% of South Africans who are in favour of the alcohol ban. Sobering statistics regarding food insecurity and gender based violence in our country are also explored. Ask Afrika aims to provide a voice to the citizens of our country in these turbulent times. – Nadya Swart

Andrea Rademeyer is the chief executive and founder of Ask Afrika. You’ve been doing a research study every week since lockdown started. I see the latest – week 14 – has got some interesting results and we’ll go into those in a moment. But what motivated you to do this in the first place? 
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Well, Alec, I was following what happened to Covid in China from January, and it struck me that there wasn’t anybody representing the citizens’ voice except little clips on social media. And I thought it has to be different in South Africa. So we prepared and we literally started interviewing from the first of April this year. 

It must be quite an expensive business, and looking at it – you’ve done more than 6000 interviews.

Exactly. We’ve done nearly 7000 interviews now, and it is expensive, but the business community in South Africa has been fantastic. Everybody’s been helping, and this is something we can do. And we wanted it to be independent, so we own the measurement. We are doing it ourselves simply to make it possible for everybody to get the same picture and use it, implement any findings they can. 

But I guess the important people to get the picture are government. Are they using your data, are they applying it? Because last night what the President said to the nation seemed to be somewhat irrational, given what most people think. 

So, they are. Whilst none of the political parties have contacted us or have received any of the reports, the government most certainly has. And different parts to government – right from the Department of Health to the GCIS – there are different parts of government that are really listening into these results. 

So, from what I saw on the latest one – which has come out today for week 14, from July the 1st to the 7th – you talk about doing it so that you can help people to move from fear to agency. In other words, take responsibility. Is there progress on that front? 

Well, I’m delighted to say that there’s little progress, Alec. So what is fear and agency about? We were all horrified during the early phases of lockdown to see the violence and brutality, really, of both the police and the National Defence Force. And my view has always been that one should be able to trust the citizens to do the right things – mostly, and in order to do so, you want citizens to take agency, to take responsibility. And really, they are.

If one looks at the sanitation behaviours – citizens are doing what they’re supposed to be doing. Even the citizens reporting on businesses are saying businesses are supposed to be doing what they’re doing. So from that sense, I’m very positive. The final effect of agency is a loss of fear, and that is not happening. I’m very concerned about South Africans’ emotional state. In fact, this week the results (which we literally released two or three hours ago) show the highest fear ratings in more than three months.

What is that telling us? And why? 

So, I was speaking to some colleagues and saying that it essentially means our communications in the country aren’t working. If you track the behavioural changes, they are there: more so in metropolitan and suburban areas than in deep rural areas, but the behaviour changes are there. And yet, people are fearful. I think it’s the context of a lot of mixed messages from some of our government ministers. 

Alec, trust has three components: empathy, authenticity and logic. This is how Harvard would describe it. Now, where some of our ministers are failing is in the logical component. And those ministers with low ratings also don’t come across as empathic. In other words, having the best interests of the citizens at heart, but actually working on a different agenda. 

You go through from the President down and ask for scores on various ministers. How does the President score? 

When we saw these scores about two months ago, I thought this is incredible because our President started with ratings of 85%. Now, I don’t know of any other president in a democracy that has ratings like that. They’ve dropped by 9%. In fact, even Zweli Mkhize‘s ratings have also dropped by 10%. 

I think what we’re seeing is that citizens are getting tired and they’re saying: ‘We gave the President our all, we’ve behaved as we should have, we’ve had to cut down our lifestyles, it’s cost us money, it’s been incredibly uncomfortable, and yet we are now in the peak’. Lockdown is not ending – we are still not entirely able to go to our jobs, we don’t feel safe in the taxis which we take to the work environment. So, citizens are very despondent. 

After the announcement on Sunday that taxis for local trips can go up to 100% there’s been enormous criticism on social media and elsewhere that this is the one industry that has stood up to government and said they are not prepared to abide by government’s rules and now they’re being rewarded for it. 

I don’t know how true that is, but if you’re saying that people are fearful of getting into taxis when they were supposed to be half full – how fearful are they going to be when they’re 100% full? 

I’m extremely worried about that. I just don’t get the logic. 51% of commuters say that they don’t feel safe in the taxis. Only trains are worse. I think it’s 92% of people that say they feel safe in their own cars, obviously. It’s interesting that commuters sanitise more when they take Uber, etc., but I think it might be a socioeconomic thing with regards to Uber. 

But also, in taxis – only 58% wear masks. Now, the President said last night that it’s becoming a criminal offense not to wear masks, but at the moment – only 58% wear masks, only 70% sanitise when they leave a taxi. So I’m very, very worried about the Taxis.

And what about the other big talking point of the moment, which is the alcohol ban? We know that gender based violence is a problem in South Africa. We’re continuously hearing about the attack against it or trying to address it. But is the alcohol ban something that is going to assist on that front? What are citizens saying?

So Alec, you need to look at the alcohol ban from two perspectives. Like always, sometimes in South Africa we live in such heterogeneous bubbles – we’re not aware of what’s going on in the other bubbles, and that’s why research is good. But there is one group – 22% of citizens – that say they are totally against the alcohol ban, because it infringes their rights and they are more afraid of losing their constitutional rights than they are actually of contracting Covid. 

However, 35% of citizens strongly support the alcohol ban. Another 34% support it. So, let’s say about 70% of citizens actually support this ban. Now, the thing about research is that you need to look at patterns. The numbers are very similar for gender based violence. According to the World Health Organisation, South Africa is one of the top five countries regarding excessive drinking – heavy drinking as a World Health Organisation calls it. 

So, what does heavy drinking mean? It means you’re out of control. It means that the shadow side comes out. And we’ve looked at the numbers: there’s absolutely no link to heavy drinkers with race, age or socioeconomic level. Nothing except gender. We have twice as many men than women who suffer from this condition. And the citizens who are strongly in support of the alcohol ban are also the ones that suffer from gender based violence. And if you then look at a different statistic that says only 11% of all citizens strongly agree that the police will keep them safe – it paints a bit of a complete picture.

Now, I also like my odd glass of wine. Of course I do, and I don’t like to be told what to do either. About 68% of people suffering from gender based violence don’t know what to do about it. Most people suffering from it are either women or youth, according to this study. So it changes the picture somewhat. 

It does indeed. The economic approach to it is to say that people are still going to get alcohol and they are now just going to go to the illicit economy. But if 70% of people – of citizens – are in favour of an alcohol ban, then clearly what the President has done reflects what the majority of citizens want. 

Yes, it does. 

The other part that jumped out at me was that a high percentage of people, relatively speaking, are having food insecurity and in fact, 28% (I think you said) are losing weight because they don’t have enough food to eat. 

Yes. And 55% are worried about their next meal. A third of all children go to bed hungry, Alec. Only 9% say they received a food parcel. Of the food insecure – so those that are really suffering from hunger – only 18 percent received a food parcel. So, a very clear take out is that the food parcels didn’t work. 

We’ve seen a spike in food insecurity in the Eastern Cape over the last week. But food insecurity is worse both in the Northwest province and in the Eastern Cape. And generally, townships fare about 20% worse than metropolitan areas.

So, if I have a look at this overall: from what the survey is telling us – apart from some irrational action (such as with taxis) – it seems very clearly based on research that is coming back to the President, i.e. not reinforcing a lockdown, because that’s going to make food insecurity even worse (or a greater lockdown) and bringing in an alcohol ban, even though it has economic consequences – the social benefits are much higher. 

Initially with lockdown – I just kept saying to everybody: ‘I’m so glad I’m not in politics, I wouldn’t know what to do’. Because you’re having to choose between one form of life and a different form of life when you actually cut people’s income. And actually, an interesting statistic is that people are nearly as fearful of unemployment as they are of contracting the virus. 

But we’ve actually got three parts. It’s not just the economy or health, it’s also social patterns in a country like ours. And what the lockdown has done for me (and I’m sure for others as well) – it’s put up, you know those safari spotlights when you drive in the evening? It has put those on our society and our society is struggling. We’re seeing a lot more of the shadow sides. 

But if you consider that in the very first week when we measured the effects of lockdown and we asked people to what extent they felt they were managing: I think 56% said yes, they’re managing, it’s fine. It’s now 23%, Alec. It’s not my space to actually give advice, but I would open the economy and I would insist on sanitation behaviours and I would not allow the taxis to fill up. I would probably even close the schools and make online possible. This time is a time for agility. And this is the time where we could leapfrog our education system. 

So there are opportunities when you say you have those safari spotlights on society. If we take note of what is there, then perhaps that gives us the motivation to address it?

Absolutely. I just think one should not try to do everything at the same time. I think the lockdown rules were a bit like a chef trying to mix his starter and the main course and the dessert, all in one. 

Change society, reengineer the economy, do lockdown – but not all at the same time, using the same tools. So, allow society to get on with it, allow business to get on with it. I think it could be a lot more agile and faster if the agendas were driven by different stakeholder groups.