Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Time to stand up and be counted
STATISTICS South Africa has embarked on its once-a-decade process to count all people in the country – including non-citizens. Census 2022 is arguably the most important in the country since the first post-apartheid census in 1996.
That census was the first time since the end of apartheid in 1994 that all South Africans were counted. Under apartheid, fictitious “homelands” excluded millions of people from the count. Excluding them allowed the apartheid government to deny their rights and responsibility for meeting their needs – by not counting them, the apartheid government ensured that they did not count for anything.
Homelands, or bantustans, were mainly rural, underdeveloped areas where black South Africans were required to live and have nominal “self-rule” and “independence”, along ethnic group lines, separate from whites. They had their own censuses.
The 1996 census was a vital tool to inform every government department, economic entity, and every citizen about the state of the nation, the depth of need, and the location of needs to be met. While it is a legal obligation for everyone to complete a census form, the 1996 census saw a real willingness to participate and to get counted – from a newly liberated population, still basking in the post-apartheid moment.
Fast-forward past the last census of 2011 to the present. In the period since then, the country has witnessed state capture, a former president (briefly) in prison, a collapse in the provision of basic services such as water, rising violence and hostility to “foreigners”.
The country also has appalling rates of gender-based violence, and is reeling from a global pandemic coming on top of the disease burden already afflicting South Africans. Covid-19 took many lives and wrecked many more livelihoods.
After two years of pandemic, lockdowns and curfews, accompanied by and amplifying cynicism about the institutions of government and political parties. South Africa is in a bad space.
The recent local elections saw the lowest ever turnout, with only the Northern Cape province seeing over half its voters actually cast a ballot. Stories of massive corruption in procuring personal protective equipment and unnecessary “deep cleaning” of public buildings cemented the view of both politicians and public servants as self-interested to the point of lacking all empathy for citizens.
With frequent power cuts further sapping the will, South Africans have reached a remarkably low point when it comes to faith in government or politics.
In this context, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) launched Census 2022 and has asked all people in the country to “get counted”.
The census will inform economics,
social policy, health care and investment. It is a tool to understand what has happened to South Africans in the last 11 years since Census 2011 and a critical planning tool as we look to the future.