There are two indisputable facts about the Eastern Cape which annually see the light because of impeccable and careful research and statistic-gathering — often by the government itself or its independent agencies.
The first is that this province suffers from the most dysfunctional local governance in the country.
This is annually pointed out by an increasingly despondent auditor-general and, ironically, confirmed by the political heads responsible.
The second indisputable fact is that the Eastern Cape, with an expanded unemployment rate of 51%, now suffers the highest joblessness in the country.
According to Statistics SA’s latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey, the province shed a further 32,000 jobs in the last quarter of 2025, bringing the total jobs lost in that year to 79,000.
The two facts are not unrelated. The province’s increasing unemployment is made worse by inept local governments that cannot consistently deliver basic services.
Industry cannot survive in a service delivery vacuum. And no business will invest in our decrepit towns and metros until governance improves.
The Western Cape is the polar-opposite in almost every respect.
For the most part, its local and metropolitan governments are adequately run, its water, sewage, road and electricity infrastructure sufficiently maintained, and its services passably delivered.
This adequacy creates investment from local and international business and industry.
And it is all supported by a provincial government that has created a unit dedicated to assisting entrepreneurs and businesses to navigate the thick red tape that strangles their ability to thrive.
The Red Tape Reduction Unit (RTRU) has had huge successes. Investment and job creation has flourished.
Despite dozens of job-seekers fleeing the Eastern for the Western Cape, that province’s unemployment rate has dropped to 18.1%, the lowest in the country.
While the Eastern Cape shed 79,000 jobs in 2025, the Western Cape added an average of 31,000 jobs a month.
For reasons no one can fathom, President Cyril Ramaphosa has decided to combine the two things most responsible for the decline of jobs in the Eastern Cape: Red tape and dysfunctional local government.
The already burdensome legal and regulatory framework, endless paperwork and other hoops businesses need to now jump through will be made 10 times worse by the Business Licensing Bill which will require all businesses to register with and obtain licences from their local municipalities every five years.
Dysfunctional municipalities will simply be unable to process applications timeously.
And the Bill is likely to expand the corruption and nepotism already obvious in municipal public procurement processes.
Instead of combing the very two ingredients likely to create a recipe for disaster in terms of job creation, Ramaphosa should abandon the Bill and focus on ways to promote local government efficiency.
Daily Dispatch
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