This is not really my ball game because by training I am an airline pilot. So, please forgive me interjecting in an ATC Forum. However, I spend a lot of time in the country of adoption and thought I would just try and give you chaps a little heads up information, having got back to Germany from yet another visit down in the big cess pit known as Johannesburg.
Not going to visit the crime scenario except to say that if you google up this..
News24.com: South Africa: Breaking News: South Africa, Aids Focus, Politics, News, Holiday Report
You will get a very vague idea of how unfunny it all is. Suspect that a lot of emmigration from South Africa is driven by the fact that the women are very scared. Rape is common place and if occasioned, AIDS is a very real certainty. The criminals these days are quite sadistic.
I know nothing about ATC salaries but at R15 to the £ and getting worse, you would have to earn a lot to send any out of the country, if you wanted to. Travel allowance has now been raised from R160,000 pa to R500,000 pa.
Cost of living gets more expensive on an almost daily basis. Petrol is now something like R11 a litre and rising. It might not sound much by European standards but there is no public transport to speak of and so you have to have a car and the distances that can be involved in either work or play travel can be considerably more than they would be in Europe. Traffic too, is horrendous so commuting time becomes critical. Pleasant suburbs in which to live are not traditionally, in Africa, sited near airports.
Groceries, well unless you subsist on bread and milk which seem to be subsidised to keep the local population a weeny bit happier, I personally do not see too much difference between home catering down there and Tesco in the UK, pricewise that is.
Pick and Pay is a sort of second tier suprmarket chain in SA. You can have a wade through their websites below and perhaps see some prices for yourselves.
Pick n Pay - Homepage
https://www.pnponline.co.za/default.aspx
Property, indeed, house prices are cheap by any standad although rentals seem to be becoming more expensive as people cannot afford the mortgage payments. (Bonds down there.)
Medical health care can be excellent if private, dire to fatal if public. Let me qualify that a little. There are some very good surgeonsand specialists down there. The hospital care, however, is what can kill you. The old nursing staff are fading away.Medical insurance or Medicaid, should be covered by employers on, usually, a contibutory basis. It really is a must have.
As between Capetown and Johannesburg, which seems to ibe a point of comparison for some of you chaps...lots of Johannisburgers have moved to Capetown, which is great for Johannesburg except that many from the southern suburbs of Johannesburg have moved up to the northern suburbs where they do not belong. Furthermore, close to three million Zimbabwean refugees have moved to the north of the northern suburbs. There will be more coming through the Limpopo border and, finding Johannesburg saturated,they will no doubt move down to Capetown.
The infra structure is crumbling slowly. Perhaps that is why so many ATC chaps and indeed pilots too, have departed, not necessarily for more money but to try and find a safe and stable life style.
On that note of arrogant and prophetic doom, I'll take my leave and wish you well. Africa is in the cheetah's blood but I would not really call South Africa the most congenial place in the world in which to live.
