Speaker,
Minister in The Presidency,
Ministers and Deputy Ministers,
The Chair of the Statistics Council,
Statistician General,
Honourable Members,
The story of the meaning of official statistics in South Africa begins with the incarceration of Nelson Mandela in Robben Island. When the distinguished Nelson Mandela went to prison, he was allocated a number 46664. This number would be used to eradicate any identity that he ever had. The whole world was forced to identify with him through the number.
The dawn of democracy ushered us with the responsibility of building all institutions, and Stats SA was no exception. This agency had to be built brick by brick to ensure that never again, I repeat, never again, should numbers be used with such an inhumane force on anyone, citizen or otherwise. Stats SA has thus embarked on the course of giving meaning to life through numbers.
South Africa remains one of the few countries that have continued to have the dual-institutional estimation of the GDP by the national statistics agency and the central bank. Stats SA and the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) have, since 1946/7, shared responsibility for the compilation of the national accounts.
Stats SA has always been responsible for compiling the production and income approaches to the calculation of the national accounts, while the SARB compiles the expenditure side of the national accounts as well as income and savings and the balance of payments.
The two institutions have undertaken to review the compilation of South Africa’s national accounts, so as to streamline their input to policy formulation and implementation. These functions will be performed by Stats SA as of 2016, thus, placing the country to preside over one of the most delicate transitions of economic activity measurement in history.
Statistics South Africa now ranks among the top national statistics agencies in the world. One needs to look back to understand how we have built such a strong organisation. During the apartheid years, numbers were used to divide us along racial lines. Numbers were used to trump methods.
For Black people, what would be decided first was the outcome, then the methods would be devised to suit the numbers. Whereas, for White people, unquestionable methods of statistical practice were followed. The numbers had to fit the policy apparatus that were at play, all the time.
The national statistics office of the time would thus not be considered among the agencies that count. It had relegated itself to a poor status of ill repute.
The present era Stats SA’s international work builds from the conclusion of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2015, thus taking forwards the post-2015 Development Agenda by way of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Stats SA continues to promote the use of data coming out of the International Comparisons Program (ICP).
The ICP collects comparative price data and compile detailed expenditure values of countries’ gross domestic products (GDP) and estimates purchasing power parities (PPPs) of the world’s economies. Using PPPs instead of market exchange rates to convert currencies makes it possible and easier to compare the output of economies and the welfare of their inhabitants in real terms.
Thus, the ICP enables PPP-based international comparisons of macro-economic aggregates such as income and output (GDP), productivity and standards of living, which take into account relative price levels between economies.
The SDGs, together with the ICP, provide a backbone for Africa’s Agenda 2063 as well as for Africa’s Industrialisation Strategy.
Stats SA, as chair and secretariat of the Africa Symposium on Statistical Development (ASSD), has been tasked with the harmonisation of the SDG indicators in support of Africa’s Agenda 2063. Other activities under the ASSD program are the 2020 Round of Population and Housing Censuses (RPHC) as well as Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS).
With Stats SA at the helm of statistical development in Africa, our continent was able to have 50 nations undertaking their censuses in 2010 round. The 2020 round, which started in 2015 and will conclude in 2024, will see the advent of technology in data collection.
Data revolution, in the form of computer assisted personal interviews (CAPI) using of smartphones and tablets to collect data, has just begun. CAPI has proved cut down the cost and time of data collection to the production of results. Stats SA has already deployed CAPI in KwaZulu-Natal to conduct the Citizen Satisfaction Survey (CSS). The results of the KZN CSS were delivered in two months.
Currently, Stats SA in the final push with data collection for the Community Survey (CS) 2016. The national statistics agencies of South Africa, Brazil, Cape Verde and Senegal have been identified by the trailblazers of computer assisted data collection. This places Stats SA in a position of bigger responsibility, a responsibility for which our country cannot allow Stats SA to abdicate on.
Two days ago Stats SA launched a report on the status of youth in our country. Stats SA has used statistical methods to go and prove what we already know.
The benefit of having an agency such as Stats SA coming up with such a detailed report on the challenges that face the youth is the deployment of uncontested methods in the field that the agency has so honed their skills and expertise.
Stats SA tells us that the percentage of young people aged 15–34 years in South Africa grew from 18.5 million to 19.6 million as of the period between 2009 and 2014. While all South African provinces experienced positive growth for both the general and youth population, the population of young people in Gauteng, North West and Western Cape recorded relatively a slower growth.
This contributed to a percentage growth observed of 6.0% among the youth as compared to 6.9% among the adults. This is a serious challenge when one compares this growth with the decline of total fertility among women of child-bearing age.
Young people in South Africa do migrate from their province of birth in search of greener pastures. We are informed that Eastern Cape and Limpopo lost larger proportions of their youth compared to Gauteng, Western Cape, North West and Mpumalanga provinces which had the highest in-migration rates compared to other provinces.
This phenomenon contributed to an increase in youth-headed households in urban areas while the rural areas recorded a decline. But male household heads among young people are still prevalent. These migration patterns have led to the majority of youth living in urban areas. The ability of youth to integrate and flourish in an urban environment is increasingly important.
The Integrated Urban Development Framework (IUDF) led by the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs is one such programme that aims to create urban spaces that are inclusive, resilient and liveable.
Of particular concern in the report are issues relating to employment, crime, health and poverty.
In terms of the participation of youth in the labour market, the high rates of youth unemployment and its challenges, which are largely structural by nature, having followed us from the deep burrows of our apartheid history.
Efforts to tackle the scourge of youth unemployment therefore have to address structural factors relating to education and skills development. And skills among African youth aged 24-35 are on the decline. In a nutshell, the report tells us that Black African and Coloured youth bear the brunt of the legacy of apartheid.
In conclusion, the numbers are pointing us to where our policies are making progress, and where we are lacking. What remains is for us, as we continue with our responsibility of providing a better life for all, is to allow these numbers not to be abstract. They must continue to give meaning to life.
