CHAPTER 4: SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS 4.1 OVERVIEW OF THE MUNICIPALITY
2. DEMOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS
2.1 Population size
According to the Community Survey of 2007 conducted by Statistics South Africa, the total population of Ntabankulu Local Municipality was estimated at 141 358 and some 27 930 households.
Statistics of persons vs. households
2.2 Gender and Age distribution
The population is dominate by female of approximately 58%, male compose only about 42%
of the population. A large percentage of the population is dominated by children and elderly people, approximately 57%, is children aged between 0 and 19 years. About 6% falls within the pensioned group (over 56years), whilst 34% are in the working age group (20-64 year).
This indicates that there is a high dependency ratio, as 63% of the population depends on social grants and 37% workforce in the municipality. This underpins the need to develop social and youth development programmes and proper infrastructural planning, provision of basic services and job creation.
Male vs. Female
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3 SOCIO ECONOMIC PROFILE
3.1 Poverty levels Vs. Employment levels
Ntabankulu is one of the municipalities with the highest levels of poverty, illiteracy and unemployment in the Eastern Cape. The rationale for this cause is that the majority of the population does not actively contribute towards the local economy, with only about 11% of households that are in formal employment. This emphasizes need for municipal planning to focus robustly on infrastructural development that facilitates local economic development initiatives that will enable the community to generate income.
3.2 Access to social grants
As a result of the low level of education and high unemployment rate, the municipality experiences high levels of poverty, thus increasing dependency on government’s social grants. The Department of Social Development (DSD) is servicing 18 wards of the municipality. The department renders eight (8) programmes which include:-
Probation services
Poverty alleviation
HIV / AIDS
Community development
Victim empowerment
Subsistence abuse.
Disability
Child, Youth and family
Approximately one third of all households receive social grants, from two main grants, the
“child support grant” and the “old age grant”. About 7% of households receive employer grant while 10% of the households receive foster care grant and impressively 19% receive child support grant; 38% of the household receive social relief grant and 11% of the household receive Disability grant, and finally 15% of the household survive on old age grants.
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3.3 Education
Very low levels of education are evident, which is a major detriment to the economy and development of the municipality. Approximately 56% of the population has no schooling and a further 43.6% have only studied up to secondary school level. Very few individuals (0.31%) in the municipal area have a higher level education and even less people have gone to adult education centers. This clearly demonstrates a generally high illiteracy level and the lack of skills in the area.
Schools in the area are no exception. A clear programme by the department to eradicate mud schools is needed. The department is only building 10 schools under the eradication of mud schools programme. Seven schools are constructed under the intervention programme.
Ingwe FET College has come on board to reverse this quandary by opening a branch in Ntabankulu. Despite the initiative, there is still an intensive need to train and develop the local community. The focus has been as-well on enhancing school governance. SGB workshops had been coordinated with the department of Education where 125 schools were represented. The review of 7 circuit education forums was also facilitated.
The municipality has been conducting library programs including library week, literacy days, Grade 12 revision class facilitation and provision of reading material and audio-visual material. Operations of the library are at the moment entirely dependent upon the municipality. Bilateral with DSRAC are underway, if no agreement is reached, the municipality is planning to close down the library.
3.4 Health (emphasis on HIV/AIDS Prevalence)
A number of challenges have been identified to hinder the effective provision of health services in the area. Poor road network and unmaintained roads result in the limited access to hospitals and clinics. An example of this is a District Road 125 to Siphethu Hospital. As a result of the bad status of this road it is even difficult to retain staff, particularly the doctors.
Shortage of staff and equipment in health facilities is an alarming concern in the municipality as there are wards without even one clinic.
The numbers of people infected and households affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic within the municipality is constantly increasing. Consequently there is an increase in the number of orphans and child headed households. The department of Health has accredited all health centers in Ntabankulu to supply ARV’s as response to fight against AIDS. About 48 support groups were established and trained on symptoms, treatment management and disclosure and de-stigmatization. Training assistance was provided by TAC, department of Health local NGO (Bambisanani). Currently the focus is on establishment of 9 additional support groups with future plan to ensure existence of support groups in all villages.
On mitigation and support the municipality has Provided seedlings to 15 support groups; food gardens (including infrastructure, equipment, seedlings and fertilizer) to 4 support groups, small scale poultry farms( fowl run infrastructure, chicks, feed and medication) to 4 support groups. Currently the municipality is to increase the provision of seedlings to all 57 support groups and soup kitchen to 2 support groups. For future the number of soup kitchens will increase by 10 each year.
15 HBCs are utilized by the municipality in providing home based care support to needy infected communities where the municipality supplies home based care kit. The HBCs had been trained on HIV/Aids and had been provided with monthly stipend of R500 per month.
Currently HBCs has increased to 18 and also the stipend has been adjusted to R1000. About 3 NGO’s – Gumpe, Candle light, Luncedo provide home based care support to HIV/Aids affected and infected communities. Only Gumpe had been funded by the Department of Social Development.