The Statistician-General of South Africa, Risenga Maluleke, his team and the Statistics Council appeared before a parliamentary portfolio committee to discuss and explain the controversy that has engulfed Census 2022.
It is not a sweet experience to be left out, but it is mournful event when a third of the population is left out. This is what the crux of the debate prior and during the hearing. It ended well, as I expected.
The two professors from the University of Cape Town, Tom Moultrie and Rob Dorrington, also correctly vetoed a DA suggestion for a re-run of the census. Indeed, it was a call that Lenin could have labelled an infantile disorder. The two professors nipped it in the bud.
But let us take a stroll down memory lane and enjoy the fruits of democracy and what, qualitatively, differences it brought to the fore from all races, especially in the census. Censuses of the Republics have been conducted in South Africa, with the first one of the Union conducted in 1911.
Not much is documented on the evaluation of these pre-1996 censuses, save to say only the White minority population was reported in full, while on the other hand not much detail was provided in the census reports on the majority Black population. They did not exist except nominally or at the pleasure of the master.
