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The launch of the spatial economic activity data-South Africa (SEAD-SA) programme will go a long way towards deepening understanding of the geographic distribution and characteristics of economic activities, says finance minister Enoch Godongwana.
Godongwana on Monday launched the programme “aimed at addressing gaps between the local economy of cities and the wider economic geography of the country by leveraging tax and other administrative data sources”.
This data has been collated and presented on a user-friendly website that gives insight into the economic activities of cities and regions at no cost. The spatial tax portal contains current data and can be easily updated with each new tax year.
SEAD-SA is the result of collaboration between the National Treasury, Human Sciences Research Council, government departments, entities, metro municipalities, donors and technical partners.
Godongwana said the launch represented an important milestone on a journey that started about nine years ago when metro municipalities lobbied national government to make available administrative data sets that could assist them in making sense of their city economies.
“The problem they wanted solved was the lack of spatialised economic activity data in South Africa. Metros did not know where firms and jobs were located within their boundaries and how firm and employment activity changed over time.
“The cities explained this meant they were making policy, planning and investment decisions on modelled and incomplete data, largely accessed at a cost from the private sector,” Godongwana said.
Messages emerging from the data included that metros were the main job generators.
“This role must be supported through public sector planning and investment from an economic and human settlements perspective.”
He said the data showed huge job losses in strategic industrial spaces in these metros. More than half of the top 30 industrial spaces had been losing jobs since 2014.
It also showed the sector composition across metros differed and the collapse of one metro could result in the collapse or severe decline of specific industries.
Strong urban centres were necessary for productive rural areas.
“The data shows the important contribution of rural economies to the country’s primary sectors with urban centres performing stronger value-adding, logistics and market-demand roles. Decline in urban industrial spaces also affected productivity of rural economic spaces.”
He said the data also showed marginal city economic spaces, such as townships and communities, and youth and women, continued to be marginalised from the formal economy.
“It provides us with the tools to question what we are doing, its impact and what we need to change to rebuild and grow our economy,” Godongwana said.
Other partners also spoke at the launch, including eThekwini mayor Mxolisi Kaunda and City of Cape Town finance MMC Siseko Mbandezi, who both highlighted the role SEAD-SA played in helping their metros in planning and decision-making.
Kaunda said: “With this tool, users, including investors, can explore the socioeconomic dynamics of any community or suburb in our municipality. The platform is critical if we want to build a sustainable and capable developmental state.
“As eThekwini, we have taken a leading role in using this data as critical infrastructure for strategic planning, decision-making and resource allocation.”
Kaunda said potential investors were able to use the tool to source valuable information on investment opportunities.
“Even ordinary members of the community can participate in the development of their own areas.”
Mbandezi said Cape Town used SEAD-SA to “allocate public resources in a way that achieves maximum public benefit through better use of economic analysis data”.
“Knowing where people work as opposed to where they live, for example, is critical to the city’s ability to model movement patterns and plan effectively for infrastructure provision. This is important when thinking about extending bus rapid transit systems such as MyCiTi,” he said.
TimesLIVE
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