You are more likely to die in Walkerville, most likely to be unemployed in Heidelberg

You are more likely to die in Walkerville, in the Midvaal area, and most likely to be unemployed if you stay in Ratanda in Lesedi local municipality.

This is according to a report compiled by AfriForum which measures the quality of life and service delivery in Gauteng's nine municipal areas.

Midvaal scored highest among the Gauteng municipalities in an audit which looked at the demographics, socio-economic conditions, service delivery, crime and management of municipalities.

AfriForum scored Midvaal 7.5 out of 10.

“The Midvaal municipality received clean audits from the auditor general for the past few years, proving that it can be trusted with residents’ money.

“This municipality also boasts low unemployment and satisfactory service delivery. Although there is room for improvement, it deserves its status as best municipality in Gauteng,” said Dr Eugene Brink, strategic adviser for community affairs at AfriForum.

The audit found that 81.3% of the municipality’s 188,843 residents lived in formal housing and the unemployment rate was 20%.

There were, however, 83 murder cases reported in the 2015/16 financial year, equating to a death rate of 87.1 people per 100,000 - the highest in the province.

The Lesedi local municipality, whose main town is Heidelberg, registered the highest unemployment rate among all the nine municipalities at 43.6%.

"According to the municipality's integrated development plan, the official unemployment rate is 43.6%. It is not mentioned if this is as per the strict or broad definition, but it is definitely high," AfriForum said.

It said the youth unemployment rate was not indicated either, but would be much higher than the official rate.

Midvaal was closely followed by the city of Tshwane in the overall standings, scoring seven out of 10.

Tshwane's murder rate was 19.8 people per 100, 000 in 2015/16 and its unemployment rate was 27%.

The Johannesburg was rated 6.5 out of 10, while Mogale and Lesedi got six out of 10.

The city of Ekurhuleni and Emfuleni local municipality were both rated 5.5 out of 10, West Rand scored five out of 10 while Merafong was bottom with four out of 10.

While Merafong had a low ranking overall, it had an unemployment rate of only 20%, compared to Lesedi (43.6%), Emfuleni (34.7%) and West Rand (38%).

“The municipality mentions that the relatively low unemployment relates to mining activities and the unemployed people flowing out of the municipality,” AfriForum said in its report.

Merafong also recorded only 19.8 murders  per 100,000 in 2015/16, compared to  Ekurhuleni (31.2 per 100,000), Johannesburg (34.7 per 100,000), West Rand  (35.5 per 100,000), Lesedi (21.1 per 100,000) and Emfuleni (29.5 per 100,000).