Mounting foreign and domestic migration to Gauteng is outpacing the province’s capacity to maintain and expand services.
This emerges from the provincial administration’s inaugural Municipal Economic Review and Outlook (MERO) report.
Business Day reports that the provincial economic review indicates that Gauteng is seeing rapid migration into its three metros, Johannesburg, Tshwane, and Ekurhuleni, placing mounting pressure on service delivery and exposing large infrastructure gaps.
Despite its small geographic footprint, Gauteng remains South Africa’s employment hub, contributing a third of the country’s GDP. It also contributes more than 10% of Sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP, making it a crucial hub for financial, manufacturing, transport, technology, and telecom sectors.
The newspaper says the review identifies Johannesburg, with its financial and logistics hubs, and Tshwane, home to a broad base of public-sector jobs and a growing automotive sector, as the top destinations.
Ekurhuleni, anchored by its large manufacturing base, also faced surging demand for housing and basic services.
The Gauteng administration describes the MERO report “as both a diagnostic tool and policy guide, offering actionable recommendations to strengthen municipal governance, stimulate township economies, and improve investment climate across Gauteng’s development corridors”.