IMPROVING LIVES THROUGH DATA ECOSYSTEMS

Inside this edition: Measuring 10 years of progress 2, The faces behind the figures 2, The South Africa I know, the home I understand 4, How does my  community compare 5, State spending boosts economy 6, Celebrating our heritage 7, Test your knowledge 8

“While many people look forward to a fulfilling old age, more than one in five adults aged 60 and over experience mental or neurological disorders, such as dementia and depression.” These were the words of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the occasion of the World Mental Health Day, 10 October 2013. Mental health conditions   read more »

Given the vast amount of information appearing in detailed financial statements of companies, it may be difficult to discern significant relationships and trends in the data. One way to address this challenge is to use accounting ratios, which provides substantial insights into the relationships between variables and can indicate certain trends. Accounting ratios are calculated   read more »

Municipalities in Gauteng province are better off in terms of generating their own revenue in the form of services provided to households, while at the same time they are also getting a bigger share of the grants and subsidies received from both national and provincial governments in proportion to the increase in total population.  The   read more »

The Financial statistics of provincial government release reports that compensation of employees increased by R23 798 million from R193 669 million in 2010/2011 to R217 467 million in 2011/2012. This increase was mainly due to increased compensation payments by the KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng and Eastern Cape provincial governments. Figure 1: Compensation of employees by province: 2011-2012 (Rm, at current prices)   read more »

“The information gap between the elite and illiterate must be closed”. This statement by Statistician-General, Mr Pali Lehohla beautifully sums up the reason for the launch of this multilingual terminology publication. The launch event took place on 20 September 2013 at the Protea Manor Hotel in Pretoria. Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) worked in collaboration   read more »

Over the past 12 months, the petrol price has increased by R2,49. This translates to an extra R124,50 to fill a 50 litre tank. The annual inflation rate for petrol is 23%, the highest since December 2011, when it was 26,3%. This is just one of the factors which led to the annual CPI inflation   read more »

South Africa has recently been plagued by a series of strikes. As collective wage negotiations got underway, employers and employees came to a deadlock. Mining, car manufacturing and City Power workers were among some of the workers who downed their tools during this time. Although many would agree that this year’s ‘strike season’, as some call it, was not   read more »

The provision of basic services such as water went up by 6,4% between 2011 and 2012 nationally. The highest provincial increases were recorded in Western Cape (19,6%) and Gauteng (7,2%). The extent of service delivery at local government level is normally obtained from households through population censuses and general household surveys. However, the suppliers (the   read more »

27 August 2013: 11:30 a.m. The seasonally adjusted real GDP at market prices for the second quarter of 2013 increased by an annualised rate of 3,0 per cent compared with an increase of 0,9 per  cent during the first quarter of 2013. GDP is one of the Economic Indicators which measures the rate of economic   read more »