2011 census counts 128,000 houses

A total of 128 000 households were counted in the 2011 census, which has been described as a success by Statistics SA Ilembe district manager Sakhile Mpanza.

Despite initial difficulties encountered with getting access to housing estates the process, which took place in October last year went smoothly.

Mpanza said the district managed to deliver within the stipulated time lines and that the level of participation was very high.

“I would like to express our sincere gratitude to the community, ward councillors and stakeholders for their support. People were very aware of what we were doing and the number of refusals, an amount of 938, was kept to a minimum,” he said.

The big count started on the night of October 9, which saw enumerators counting truck drivers, newborn babies, travellers and ladies of the night.

Mpanza said counting the ladies of the night was a bit of a challenge as enumerators had to maintain their professionalism when, in some cases, they were being viewed as possible clients.

For the rest of October at total of 1353 supervisors, coordinators, and enumerators then took to the streets to complete the count.

“Many people called to say they had not been counted or had not received a form. In most cases it was because we did not have access to their home. We were then able to rectify the problem and send someone to assist them,” he said.

“Our enumerators did encounter people who did not want to be counted, particularly among the Chinese community in Isithebe. We also fished out a couple of enumeration forms from dustbins.”

Once the initial census was complete, enumerators spent a further two weeks in November revisiting the homes of those they did not find during the census period.

Statistics SA is now processing data from all over the country and it is expected that they will disseminate the results in November this year.

Mpanza said that there are a number of other research projects that Stats SA is running in the Ilembe district and asked the community to co-operate.

These include the quarterly labour force survey to measure the unemployment rate, the victims of crime project, the national travel survey and a general household survey.

“These officials will have Stats SA name tags with the logo, their name and surname and their Persal number which has been issued by government. Please co-operate with them.”