It’s official: if you want to earn more, Gauteng is the place to be. Salaries there are “nearly 70 percent higher than the national average”.
This is according to the State of the Cities report, which analysed the health of the country’s nine major municipalities – eThekwini, Joburg, Cape Town, Tshwane (Pretoria), Ekurhuleni (Benoni), Nelson Mandela Bay (Port Elizabeth), Msunduzi, Mangaung (Bloemfontein) and Buffalo City (East London) – in terms of their economy, built environment, environmental sustainability, levels of good governance and the state of their finances. The report was released in Joburg this week.
Apart from confirming a much-held belief that pay is better in Gauteng than elsewhere, the report also states that many municipalities are struggling with cash-flow issues, have high levels of unemployment, are battling to deal with housing backlogs and will soon face shortages of natural resources, especially water.
Figures contained in the document show that salaries are significantly higher in the metro municipalities than they are in the secondary cities and more rural areas of the country. But the difference is most marked in Gauteng.
In Tshwane, salaries are, on average, about R58 000 a year, Joburg’s are about R56 000 and Ekurhuleni about R51 000. Cape Town salaries are about R55 000 on average. Durbanites, on the other hand, will earn an average salary of R40 000 a year and Pietermaritzburg workers about R37 000. The South African average is about R36 000.
According to the report, the reason for this is that the economies in the major cities “are more productive than other parts of the country”.
The three Gauteng municipalities account for more than 32 percent of South Africa’s total economic output, and the six metros combined account for 55 percent of the national total.
However, according to Professor Ivan Turok of the Human Sciences Research Council, the economic strength of the nine main municipalities has resulted in a number of challenges.
“The economic gap between the nine cities and other parts of the country is possibly bigger than anywhere else is the world – and it has widened over the past 10 years. But the welfare gap has narrowed at the same time, which is evidence that access to services has improved in rural areas.
“While this has created some jobs, it hasn’t been enough to ensure that the economic gap narrowed,” he said at a conference this week.
And, as a result, more people are moving to the cities to find jobs.
“There is a much better chance of getting a job in the metros than anywhere else and the chance of being in a low-paying job is higher in the non-metros. There are also a higher number of high-skilled jobs in the main cities than in other areas, particularly in the metros and specifically in Gauteng. The quality and quantity of jobs is higher in the metros than elsewhere.
“Forty-three percent of the national adult population is unemployed. This has also meant that the Gauteng metros were much harder
hit by the recession than any other area,” Turok said.
As people move to the cities, municipalities have to start taking services to them. This is where many challenges lie.
According to the report, about 700 000 people are living in informal housing in the three Gauteng metros, compared to about 200 000 each in eThekwini and Cape Town. The three secondary municipalities have a combined number of 500 000.
There are also a large number of people without access to services, including toilets, water and electricity.
But again, Turok said, these services were still more readily available in main cities than in rural parts of the country.
Despite the challenges outlined in the report, Deputy Minister of Cooperative Government, Yunus Carrim, said the cities had performed well given that many of the issues were out of their control.
“For all the difficulties the cities have experienced over the past 10 years, the report points to the resilience they have shown, and will need, to deal with issues largely beyond their control, such as inmigration, fluctuations in the global economy, levels of foreign direct investment and aspects of climate change,” he said.
* South African municipalities are in a worse financial state than they were five years ago – and it looks set to worsen .
This is according to Yasmin Coovadia, CEO of Public Services and Utilities International, speaking at the launch of the State of the Cities 2011 report in Joburg this week.
Presenting the chapter on municipal finances, Coovadia said progress had been made up until 2007, but then some worrying factors started to emerge. Among these were an increase in the number of grants from national government and the pressures put on municipal budgets by an ever-increasing wage bill and an increase in bulk services costs, like water and electricity.
“South African cities were generally weaker in 2009 than they were in 2006. Based on the audited 2009/10 financial statements, and we are updating our figures, we are probably going to see an even bleaker picture because we will see more clearly the full impact of the recession on municipalities,” Coovadia said.
She said many municipalities were facing a cash crisis. On average, the six metros have about six weeks’ cash-on-hand in their bank accounts.
eThekwini deputy city manager Sipho Cele said the city’s cash-onhand had reduced to about 25 days, but once they took legal action
against government departments for outstanding debts the money started coming in and the situation improved vastly, with there now being more than 60 days’ cash-onhand in the city’s account.
However, despite these problems, the cities were praised for increasing their capital spending, which ensures that services are delivered to the citizens. - Sunday Tribune