Mass exodus at Stats SA: World Bank, IMF poach staff amid budget cuts

Parliament has heard how staff from low-level employees to senior executives are leaving Stats SA in droves.

While the public service department responsible for tracking and reporting the demographic and economic state of the population is facing major budget cuts on the back of a widely regarded failed 2022 census, those at the helm could not point out the main reasons for the exodus.

Instead, Deputy Minister in the Presidency Kenneth Morolong related the statistics of how employees left rather than why, when asked.

He stood in for Minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni in answering questions during a National Assembly Plenary on Thursday.

Watch the plenary below:

Stats SA’s fundamentally flawed Census 2022

Stats SA in July maintained data collection standards were met in the Census 2022 despite clear anomalies pointed out by University of Cape Town demographers describing Census 2022 as setting “an undesirable record—the highest undercount”.

They called this a “travesty” and “not fit for purpose, and Stats SA’s vocal defence of it”.

The next month, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) admitted that valuable data collected from its Census 2022 is fundamentally flawed and not of good enough quality to be released for official or public use.

This drew widespread criticism from experts, civil organisations, and political parties.

Stats SA then released an updated version of its publication Census 2022 in Brief, which now excludes income and earnings, labour and employment, and mortality and fertility.

ALSO READ: Census ’22 data is ‘fundamentally flawed’ as DA calls for new exercise

A third of staff who left resigned outright

Siyabonga Gama of the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party pointed out that since Stats SA is facing stiff competition and its critical human resources are being depleted by poaching from multilateral organisations and banks.

“[This] results in a huge vacancy rate at Stats SA that may in the future impede its ability to execute its mandate. What has [Minister Ntshavheni] found to be the reasons cited the most by Stats SA employees when leaving the organisation?”

To this, Morolong said that Stats SA has responded to staff attrition by looking at its causes.

“Between the periods 2021 and 2024, 10% of our employees left Stats SA as a result of death. Between the same period, we had 33% because of resignation. In the same period, we had 28% expiry of contracts.”

He said 2% of those who left were dismissed because of misconduct. Discharge due to ill health was 1.9%. Retirement accounted for 19.6%, while transfer to other public service departments was 5.2%.

ALSO READ: Census 2022: A blunder that could haunt SA

Budget cuts at Stats SA can affect report production in the long run

In response, Gama asked the deputy minister to answer the question as to the reasons employees chose to leave rather than report the statistics of what constituted the vacancies.

He also asked what impacts budget cuts at Stats SA had when top executives were being poached by the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Morolong, in his reply, said the work of Stats SA was critical for the collection, production, and dissemination of statistical data. This data aids the country in its decision-making processes, he said.

“The budget cuts have got huge implications because Stats SA produces over 1 250… social, economic and population reports.”

He said budget cuts impact the department’s ability to produce these reports.

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