The total number of civil judgments recorded for debt in SA fell by 12.9 percent year on year (y/y) in March 2012 to 41,459 after a 25.3 percent fall in 2011, data from Statistics SA (Stats SA) released on Thursday showed.
The value of the judgements in March declined by 28.2 percent y/y to R361.2 million, while the number of summonses for debt dropped by 7.7 percent y/y to 96,698. The number of civil summonses issued for debt had a 17.9 percent decrease in 2011 to 1,057,444.
The main drivers behind the 25.3 percent annual decrease in 2011 were civil judgements relating to the money lent category (contributing -12.0 percentage points), the services category (contributing -5.6 percentage points), and the promissory notes and other acknowledgements of debt category (contributing -4.1 percentage points).
During 2011, 503,528 civil judgements for debt amounting to R5.1656 billion were recorded. The largest contributors to the R5.1656 billion were money lent (R1.5261 billion or 29.5 percent), "other debts" (R1.0186 billion or 19.7 percent), services (R901.2 million or 17.4 percent), and goods sold (R807.8 million or 15.6 percent).
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