Every municipality in numbers: a new MzansiData tool

MzansiData now has a page for each of South Africa's 257 municipalities: 8 metros, 44 districts and 205 local municipalities. In 2024/25, 220 of the 240 municipalities with figures spent less on repairs and maintenance than Treasury's norm of 8% of the value of their assets (National Treasury, Municipal Money; MzansiData's calculation).

Each page shows the municipality's people and services at home from Census 2022, its water quality scores, its finances, its audit outcomes, its council seats after the 2026 elections and its voter turnout, next to similar municipalities. The pages keep to a few figures that are easy to read; a CSV download on each page has every figure behind it. Find a municipality on the Tools page.

Each page covers people, services, water, finances, audits, council seats and turnout

Polokwane, a secondary city in Limpopo, had 843 459 residents in 2022, up from 728 633 in 2011, according to Stats SA's Census 2022 Municipal fact sheet. In 2022, 78,9% of its households had piped water in the dwelling or yard, against 69,8% in 2011. Polokwane spent R6,3 billion on operating costs in 2024/25. It spent 5,1% of the value of its property, plant and equipment and investment property on repairs and maintenance, against the 8% norm in Treasury's MFMA Circular 71. Its audit outcome for 2023/24 was an unqualified opinion with an emphasis of matter: the financial statements were fairly presented, and the Auditor-General drew attention to an issue in them.

Polokwane collected 96,0% of what it billed for property rates and service charges in 2024/25, on a simplified version of Treasury's collection rate, and its average electricity tariff increase for 2026/27 is 10,01%, the increase it applied for in the tariff decision of the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA). Its drinking water scored 56,2% in the Department of Water and Sanitation's Blue Drop 2023 audit, in the "average" band.

Cape Town, a metro, spent 1,1% on the same repairs measure and had an unqualified audit with no findings in 2023/24. Metro pages add the unemployment rate from Stats SA's Quarterly Labour Force Survey. Cape Town's was 22,2% on the official definition in the third quarter of 2026 and 24,6% on the expanded one, which also counts people who want work but did not look for it. Both are survey estimates: Stats SA's 95% range for the official rate is 18,8% to 25,6%.

District pages, such as uMgungundlovu's in KwaZulu-Natal, show the seats that voters elect directly, which are 40% of a district council's seats. The other 60% are filled by the local councils in the district from their own councillors.

The repairs ratio is MzansiData's own calculation from Treasury's figures, a simplified form of the Circular 71 ratio. Of the 257 municipalities, 17 have no repairs figure because their return was incomplete or the ratio fell outside a plausible range.

In 2023/24, 140 municipalities had an unqualified audit opinion, 41 of them with no findings

The chart counts the Auditor-General's opinions for all 257 municipalities, in the Auditor-General's order. "Outstanding" means the audit was not finished when the outcomes were published.

Source: Auditor-General of South Africa, audit outcomes 2023/24, in National Treasury's Municipal Money audit opinions data (released 30 July 2026).

Another 90 had a qualified opinion, 6 an adverse opinion and 11 a disclaimer, where the Auditor-General could not form an opinion. The pages show 2024/25 finances next to 2023/24 audits: the 2024/25 figures are the municipalities' audited actual figures as submitted to Treasury, while the Auditor-General's 2024/25 outcomes are not yet in Treasury's data.

The page text comes from fixed rules in the site's code

Every page is built from data files when the site is built. The text is generated from fixed rules in the site's code; none of it is written by hand or by AI for a single municipality. For example: "It collected {share}% of what it billed for rates and services in {year}, above the median of the {number} secondary cities". Where a figure is missing, the page shows "Not reported" for it and leaves out the sentence that uses it. The pages make no claims about causes. The only describing words are Treasury's norms and plain comparisons such as "above the median".

Each figure is compared with the municipality's peers: the others in the same National Treasury category. These are metros (A), secondary cities (B1), large towns (B2), small towns (B3), mostly rural municipalities (B4) and districts (C). A strip under each figure shows where the municipality sits among them: its own value, the median and the middle half of the group. One switch on the page changes every strip to the province or the whole country. Rand totals have no strip.

The data comes from six publishers

• Stats SA, Census 2022 Municipal fact sheet (Report 03-01-82): population, household size, children under 15, adults with matric or higher, dwellings and services at home, for 2022 and 2011. Stats SA re-worked the 2011 figures to the 2021 municipal boundaries, which the 2026 municipalities share. "Matric or higher" adds the fact sheet's shares of adults whose highest level is matric and of those with higher education, which are separate categories. Source of the basic data: Stats SA; the selection is MzansiData's own processing of the data.
• Department of Water and Sanitation: Blue Drop 2023 (drinking water quality), Green Drop 2025 (wastewater treatment; provincial reports of 29 March 2026) and the latest No Drop score (water loss management, from the 2023 audit as restated in the 2025 No Drop report). The scores belong to the water services authority, so where a district runs water services, its local municipalities show the district's scores and say so.
• National Treasury, Municipal Money: audited actual figures for 2024/25. Treasury's terms allow reuse with credit. The norms are from Treasury's MFMA Circular 71. "Billed money collected" is cash received from property rates and service charges, with VAT taken off the service-charge receipts, divided by what was billed: a simplified form of the Circular 71 collection rate, which uses debtor balances. Results outside 30% to 130%, a sign of receipts booked under other items, are left out.
• National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA): the average tariff increase for 2026/27 in each municipality's tariff decision (published 30 June 2026). Municipalities that do not sell electricity show "Eskom supplies directly".
• Auditor-General of South Africa: audit outcomes 2019/20 to 2023/24, as National Treasury publishes them, each linked to its audit report.
• Electoral Commission (IEC): 2026 seat calculation reports and turnout reports for 2016, 2021 and 2026, read 9 November 2026.
• Stats SA, Quarterly Labour Force Survey, release P0211 for the third quarter of 2026 (10 November 2026): unemployment rates for the eight metros. Source of the basic data: Stats SA; the selection is MzansiData's own processing of the data.

Each page has a CSV download with every Stats SA, Treasury, Auditor-General, Water and Sanitation and NERSA figure for the municipality, including the ones the page leaves out to stay short (such as age structure, revenue mix and days to pay creditors), with its source and date. The IEC's figures are on the pages but not in the downloads, because the IEC's terms do not allow its tables to be republished without its consent.

Some figures are not included

• The Census fact sheet has no household counts, so the pages show no figures per household; the money figures are per resident. There is no official area figure in these sources, so the pages show no population density.
• The Department of Water and Sanitation publishes no terms for reusing its reports. Its scores are on the pages with credit, on MzansiData's own decision. The No Drop reports give water losses only in charts, so the pages show the No Drop score and no water-loss percentage.
• Where a municipality has not submitted a figure to Treasury, or the IEC's report has no data, the page says "Not reported". When the data was read on 9 November 2026, 255 of the 257 councils had a seat report the site could read: Mnquma's council had not been declared, and one report did not pass the site's checks. For 182 of the 213 metros and local municipalities, the IEC's 2026 turnout report had data; for the other 31 it said "No data available". The pages update when the data is read again.