SA’s Census Extended As Stats SA Struggles With Logistics

As fieldworkers struggle getting door-to-door, the Census 2022 has been extended until 20 March.

Over the last three weeks, workers have been trying to collect data on all those currently living in South Africa, including foreign nationals and homeless residents.

The country’s population is counted every 10 years.

Statistics SA spokesperson, Trevor Oosterwyk, said that logistical issues seriously hampered and delayed the start to this year’s campaign.

“At this stage, we’re a lot more optimistic than we were a few days ago. It’s a lot of things that we’d anticipated to fall into place much earlier took a bit longer than what it should have – from finding sufficient numbers of cars from car rental people, insufficient numbers of field workers in the local areas where they are based,” Oosterwyk explained.

It was also the first time that the census registration and questionnaire was available online but Oosterwyk said that this didn’t yield the results they were hoping for.

“The gremlins were also swimming all over the census and obviously things took a bit longer. We had to close the registration on the 21st of February. A lot of people had actually taken the opportunity to do that but others filled in the registration and agreed to do a contact and then they don’t complete the questionnaire,” he said.

Members of the public have again been urged to get counted.