Cape Town - The Western Cape was the most “complex and problematic” province in which to undertake enumeration for Statistics SA’s 2022 Census.
StatsSA statistician-general Risenga Maluleke recently briefed the portfolio committee on planning, monitoring and evaluation of the Census 2022 project implementation and results impacting the 7th administration’s planning.
Following scrutiny, criticism and caution over the use of the data emerging from the process by industry experts, Deputy Minister in the Presidency Nonceba Mhlauli said there was “no crisis” with Census 2022.
“As government as well as StatsSA, we are very confident that the numbers that we have released to the nation are fit for purpose and which is why we stand by the numbers.”
Maluleke said that the Covid-19 pandemic had been the biggest disruptor to the process.
“We had to come up with two other methods: computer-assisted web interviews where people could register and enumerate themselves, and computer-assisted telephone interviews.
“But these were not our main form of collections because not everyone is literate to work on their own computers.”
He said that Census 2022 was the hardest conducted by StatsSA.
Maluleke added that the Western Cape had been more complex, which required a number of meetings with Premier Alan Winde and other interventions.
“The Western Cape problem was much more complex.
“Firstly, 64% of the population of the Western Cape sits in the City of Cape Town and the white population group could not take up our work because we pay very little so we had to bring in field workers who are coloured as well as African to come and assist but the white population group would not allow black Africans as well as coloureds in their households, only a few did,” Maluleke said.
“The coloured population group is afraid to go to African areas in Khayelitsha, Langa, and Nyanga. And the African population group is afraid to go to places like Mitchells Plain and the likes, so it became very complex. Actually, the entire leadership including myself, we had to camp here.”
Among the challenges faced nationally included a shortfall of fieldworker applicants in some areas.
More than 100 000 fieldworkers were deployed for the count and interventions were made in some provinces due to dropouts and resignations, which was particularly an issue in the Western Cape.
Maluleke said that there was also a shortage of fleets as the pandemic had affected the availability of rental vehicles.
Some provinces also experienced high refusal and non-response rates.
As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, StatsSA saw the highest refusals in Census 2022, with 1.2 million households refusing to be remunerated.
“But we recorded, if we didn’t find you, we recorded, if you refused, we recorded,” Maluleke said.
Cape Argus