Census is another waste of money

INSTEAD of employing local people to conduct the census count in the Western Cape, people have been brought in from Limpopo and 208 enumerators have been put up at the five-star Lord Charles Hotel in Somerset West with meals being provided and are being paid R260 each a day.

The cost of accommodation , transport and salaries probably runs into millions of rand and could have been put to far better use.

The final count is unlikely to produce an accurate population number and there are other easier ways of arithmetically estimating the number by starting with the last closing number: add on the new births and legal immigrants, deduct the number of deaths and the number who have emigrated from South Africa, and estimate the number of illegal migrants who have entered the country.

This method will result in a tremendous cost-saving and the final number will probably be as accurate as the so called census count.

LEN WALKER | Somerset West