Johannesburg is expected to be the 12th-largest city in the world by 2015, Minister of Housing Lindiwe Sisulu said on Thursday.
”We are in a province that is projected to have the 12th-largest city in the world by 2015, as a result of migration,” she said in Johannesburg.
”Paradoxically, Gauteng is known to be the smallest province geographically,” Sisulu said in a speech prepared for delivery at a Gauteng housing summit.
”According to a 2004 report done for the province by the University of Cape Town, titled Internal Migration to the Gauteng Province, one-third of Gauteng’s population is born outside the province, while a further 5% is born outside the country altogether,” she said.
According to Statistics South Africa’s mid-year population estimates of 2004, Gauteng was home to about 19% of South Africa’s population.
Sisulu admitted the housing backlog for the province — which had a population of 8,8-million in 2001 — is substantial.
”We have therefore determined that the houses we build each year must show a significant increase in the scale of delivery without, however, compromising quality.”
Sisulu said the department has finished registering all informal settlements in the province, and they number 392 out of 1 176 informal settlements in the country. — Sapa