Merafong City Local Municipality

Merafong City (English Merafong City Local Municipality ) is a town in South Africa's District West Rand in Gauteng Province. The administrative center of the municipality is located in Carletonville. Maphefo Letsie is the mayor. The ANC represents the majority in the City Council.

The name of the village comes from the Setswanasprache; merafong means mining area. The municipality covers an area of 1631 square kilometers. 2007, the municipality had 215 860 inhabitants according to projections.

Geography

By Merafong City, the rivers flow Magalies, Rietspruit, crocodile and Mooirivierloop. Furthermore, there is also a lake in the municipality, the Lancaster Dam. The most important places in the municipality are:

Other places are Vreysrus, bank, Oberholzer, North Dene, South Dene, Elandsridge, Leeudrif and Losberg.

The community is connected through the National Roads N12 and N14 to the road network.

Merafong City was formerly a so-called cross-border municipality, a municipality on the province boundaries. With the abolition of this, Merafong City has been completely incorporated into the North-West Province in 2005. After sometimes violent protests in the township Khutsong the community was incorporated into the province of Gauteng.

Economy

On the territory of the municipality there are lots of gold. The deposits are among the largest in the world. Therefore, the mining industry is the most important industry of the community ( 35 % of GVA, 2008). Other economic activities are trade, 15 percent of the ESPE and financial, logistics and other services and the public service, each with about 10 percent.

However, decreases the importance of the mining industry, as the price of gold for a long time was relatively low. Thus, economic growth is generally lower than the South African average. Since 2004 (until 2008) it was constantly negative. The primary economic objective of the local government is to diversify.