Statistics South Africa’s work sits at the centre of government’s ability to plan and deliver services, Deputy Minister in the Presidency Nonceba Mhlauli said, framing the agency’s data as the practical foundation on which schools, clinics and other essential services are located and funded.
Speaking at the celebration of Stats SA’s Census 30th Anniversary in South Africa, Mhlauli told the agency’s staff that the figures they produce are not abstract. “The data you produce enables the government to see where schools, clinics and essential services are needed, where resources must be redirected, where progress is being made and where it is not,” she said. In her view, the team has made evidence-based planning not just possible, but credible. “Credibility, in our constitutional democracy, is the precondition for everything,” she added.
The anniversary marked three decades of population counting in the democratic era. Census 2022, conducted in February 2022, was the fourth population and housing count in post-apartheid South Africa, following the first in 1996 and subsequent counts in 2001 and 2011. A census provides comprehensive data on population size, demographic trends and other service delivery-related information, the kind of material that feeds directly into government planning, budget allocations and service delivery improvements.
Mhlauli was candid about the operational difficulty of producing that data. Statistics South Africa, she noted, cannot count a single person who does not open the door. “Every number in every census, every finding in every household survey, begins with an ordinary person who said yes. Who let a fieldworker into their home. Who answered questions about how many people lived there, what work they did, whether they had access to water, whether their children were in school, and whether they had lost someone in the past year,” she said.
By participating, households invest in their community’s future, she argued, though not everyone realises this when the enumerator knocks. She described that gap in understanding as one of the most significant ongoing challenges facing the agency’s fieldwork.
Meanwhile, the barriers to enumeration are growing, in South Africa and abroad. “Across the world, census participation is becoming harder. People are busier and more mobile. A significant number of people live in gated estates, secure complexes and high-rise buildings that are difficult to access,” Mhlauli said. Some residents are anxious about privacy, about who will see their information and how it will be used. Others are skeptical that responding will change anything in their lives. In some communities, she said, legitimate frustration with service delivery turns into hostility towards any official who arrives at the door.
Her answer to that problem is sustained trust-building rather than a once-a-decade appeal. “The lesson is clear: public trust must be earned continuously, not only in the census year. It requires transparency. It requires communication in all our official languages and through channels that people use. It requires partnership with traditional leaders, faith communities, councilors, residents’ associations and community development workers,” she explained. She added that after a census is conducted, communities must be shown what was done with their information and how it enabled decisions.
Mhlauli thanked everyone who opened their doors over the past 30 years for a census, a General Household Survey, an Income and Expenditure Survey or any other instrument through which the country learns about itself on behalf of government. “Your participation was an act of citizenship. It was more significant than you may have realised,” she said.
Looking ahead to the next count, she called on South Africans to cooperate when Census 2031 gets underway. “And when that enumerator comes, or when the invitation arrives to complete the census online, I ask each and every South African: open the door. Take part. Your answers are not merely data. They are your voice in the planning of your country’s future,” she said.
She closed by thanking Stats SA employees for their dedication, saying their work has helped shape government planning, budget allocations and service delivery improvements throughout the democratic era.
Stats SA is mandated to collect, process, analyse and disseminate official statistics for South Africa. It publishes key indicators such as gross domestic product (GDP), employment, household surveys, census results and provincial financial statistics.