The National Treasury has launched eight metro reports containing spatialised economic data drawn from anonymised administrative tax data.

South African cities and towns are characterised by a spatial mismatch between where people live and economic activity, resulting in the exclusion of a large percentage of the population, particularly lower-income and historically disadvantaged groups, from participating in the economy.

The data contained in the reports is integral to supporting the work of policymakers and planners within municipalities to make better informed, data-driven decisions and policies to address these structural inequalities within cities and boost economic growth.

Further, the National Treasury has entered into a partnership with the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) to ensure the preparation of these data panels, the accessibility by the metros and the broader research community to these data panels, and the building of analytical capabilities within the metros on a sustainable basis.

“While the use of this data fills a major gap within a drive for more evidence-based policy within government, the efforts by the National Treasury to secure other administrative data sources to fill remaining gaps on behalf of the metros will continue.

"In particular, the limitation of this administrative tax data set in providing information on the informal sector and non-tax registered firms and individuals, is acknowledged,” says the National Treasury director-general Dondo Mogajane.

He said that having spatialised data would enable South Africa to understand and compare what is happening over time in terms of formal firms and jobs within specific city spaces including the central business districts and smaller economic nodes, industrial parks and special economic zones, townships and logistics hubs, as well as where jobs are being created and where firms are locating at a city-wide level.

The intention is to prepare anonymised data panel sets for the metros on an yearly basis.