Stats SA to mop-up incomplete census 2022 data collection

Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) has announced that a census mop-up phase will be taking place until April 14.

The census 2022 came to an end on March 20, where just more than 12 million households, from an estimated 17.4 million households, had been counted.

Statistician-general Risenga Maluleke said during the mop-up phase, field workers would visit all incomplete enumeration areas to count all households that were not counted during the first phase of data collection.

Maluleke said provinces were in the process of completing their plans to enumerate the outstanding households in the shortest time possible.

“Field workers will go out in groups to enumerate areas that have been identified as unsafe.”

He said members of body corporates, farm owners, communities living in estates and other settlement types where access to individual households was strictly managed could, with the assistance of the fieldworker assigned to their area, arrange to receive a questionnaire completion link which would enable all households in their community to complete the questionnaire online.

“Once the link has been received, it is the responsibility of the gatekeeper to distribute the link to the households, who must then complete the questionnaire online.”

Maluleke said the participation in the census was mandatory under the Statistics Act 6 of 1999.

“Households that have not been counted are advised to wait to be contacted by a fieldworker.”

He said households who had not registered before and wished to opt for online completion could only register with the assistance of a fieldworker.

“Online registration will not reopen otherwise.”

He said households who registered for the online questionnaire completion before but failed to complete the questionnaire within the allocated time would be re-sent the questionnaire completion link.

Maluleke said approximately 60% of the current field workers were to be given new contracts at the same rate of pay as was previously the case.

He said provinces such as Limpopo, Mpumalanga, and the Free State had completed more than 70% of households; while the Western Cape was lagging behind with less than 30% of households counted.

“We appeal to everyone who has not been counted to use this opportunity to exercise their civic duty to participate in the census,” said Maluleke said.

Census field workers servicing areas in Gauteng have threatened to withdraw the remainder of their services due to a lack of payment from a temporary job described as dangerous, poorly managed and filled with inaccurate data, as Stats SA had failed to pay salaries since February to numerous recruited staff.

On Thursday last week numerous field workers protested outside Stats SA offices in Pretoria to deliver a memorandum of demands due to an issue of non-paid salaries.

Representative of the protesting field workers Moagi Thebe said he was happy that payments were finally being processed to field workers and other staff working through the census period.

“Some have been paid as we are working with Stats SA to breach the issues of non-payment and disputes.”

He said they were now, along with Stats SA facilitating to receive accurate details from field work to ensure payments were received.

“Most field operation officers, in charge of overseeing accurate details for payments, were not doing their jobs, to ensure payments were made.

“They were sabotaging payments.”

Stats SA acting DDG for corporate services, Bruce Jooste said Stats SA had witnessed a challenge in the salary payments of supervisors and field workers.

“We have picked up countrywide that there were challenges in the system with regards to various stages of sign off in the contacts, appointment processes and not to mention issues with banking details.

“Everyone is on a list we are dealing with as received provincially.”

Jooste assured employees that Stats SA would resolve the matter as data production was already affected.