Census 2022 hits logistical bumps, leading to forced extension

South Africa’s Census 2022 is on shaky ground as Statistics SA (Stats SA) fumbles with logistical issues.

Launched on 3 February with the deadline originally set for Friday, Stats SA spokesperson Trevor Oosterwyk said logistical issues delayed the start to this year’s campaign.

The new deadline for the census is 20 March. Oosterwyk said the pandemic had a massive impact on the number of rental cars available as private rental companies had not acquired new cars during hard lockdown.

“The car issue is still ongoing but that is why data collection has been extended until 20 March,” he said.

“This was a major challenge and at this stage we are a lot more optimistic than we were a few days ago. A lot of things we anticipated would fall into place much earlier, took a bit longer.”

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In the last few weeks, workers had been trying to collect data on all those currently living in SA, including foreign nationals and homeless people. Oosterwyk said the recruitment process also went slower than expected.

The plan to recruit staff to work in the communities they lived in did not pan out, as people in certain areas did not apply.

“Many of those who applied already had jobs and thought it would be different. When they found out how much it would be, they resigned,” he said.

“Others failed the security and verification process.”

However, Oosterwyk said they had now called in another service provider and appointed almost the whole of their staff, close to 100 000 individuals. It was also the first digital census, with registration and questionnaires available online.

But Oosterwyk said this did not yield the results they were hoping for.

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“At the start, there were a lot of gremlins. In the first two weeks, we could not get into full gear to collect all census data in time and given the context of those set of problems, the statistician general and the statistics council agreed to the extension.

“Unlike with the elections, with the census we cannot really tell people when it is complete, how many people have been counted or how much is left.”

– lungas@citizen.co.za