Insufficient attention is paid to the performance of South African cities, regions and local economies, partly due to the lack of credible data.📈 Economy TheCitizenBusiness
A new data programme that will make sense of economic activities in South Africa could help metros make policy, planning and investment decisions based on real data instead of using modelled and incomplete data mostly accessed at a price from the private sector.
“The SEAD-SA programme is a key step toward making sure that allocated funds and efforts are well-targeted. The launch represents an important milestone on a journey that started about nine years ago, when the metropolitan municipalities lobbied national government to make available national administrative data sets that could assist them in making sense of their city economies,” Godongwana said.
This collaboration extended to the exploration of a spatialised version of the entire Sars Integrated Business Register, to enable access to additional public and third-party data sources and there is an agreement to integrate this with StatsSA’s National Statistics System to broaden the scope further to include the contributions of other national administrative data sources.
“We all know the challenging times South Africa finds itself in increasing fiscal risks, low economic growth, high unemployment, declining productivity and stubborn structural economic constraints. These are putting a brake on the kind of economic activity we are striving for to meet our developmental challenges.”Godongwana emphasised that the country cannot afford low returns on public sector investment, company closures and downsizing or job losses.
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