Independent Newspapers
Statistician-General Pali Lehohla said he was forced to act over incorrect census data as it had the potential to create chaos and instability. File photo: Masi Losi
Durban – Incorrect census data had the potential to create “chaos and instability” in the country and resources would be allocated to provinces unfavourably, said Statistician-General Pali Lehohla.
Lehohla, who was again forced to defend the 2011 Census, said he would have had to resign or be fired had he not reopened the process into the disputed undercount figures.
He said after reopening the process because of questionable methodology, the correct undercount stood at 14.6 percent, and not the 18.3 percent previously recorded.
An undercount refers to people not accounted for by the census due to not answering the questionnaire.
Lehohla was responding to a question related to a Sunday Independent article about the bitter fallout over census undercounting and methodology.
The undercount is understood to have cost deputy director-general and whistle-blower Jairo Arrow and StatsSA’s chief director for methodology, evaluation and standards, Marlize Pistorius, their jobs.
The two officials were accused of gross negligence and dereliction of duty after they arrived at an 18.3 percent undercount during the post-enumeration survey.
Lehohla said that failing to act and reopen the post-enumeration process would have been a dereliction of duty and he would have had to resign or be fired.
Briefing the media on the latest statistics on capital expenditure by the public sector, Lehohla said a previous undercount figure of 18.3 percent was “too high” and had to be adjusted to 14.6 percent, which was still too “high”.
“The… 14.6 percent is high… but 18.3 percent is even higher. The action that I took as statistician-general advising council on this matter was that I said there is a problem in this estimate of undercount, not in the estimate itself, but in the methodology that I see…” said Lehohla.
He said wrong figures in a country that allocated resources based on population numbers had the potential to “create chaos and instability, and it’s unfair”. For example, Gauteng’s undercount was estimated at 19 percent, but it “dropped like lead” to 14 percent.
Lehohla said had Gauteng proceeded with that undercount, the allocation of resources to the province would have been unfavourably made.
“And the statistics office cannot perpetrate unfairness and inequity… We have to provide the numbers that ensure equity because the act says we must serve without fear of favour. And the wrong number was going to favour some provinces,” said Lehohla.
On the capital expenditure by the public sector, Lehohla said the government pumped more than R202 billion into the economy in 2012, and total expenditure by public sector institutions increased from R181bn in 2011 to R202bn in 2012.
He said R137bn went into new construction projects, while R38bn was spent on plant machinery and equipment.
The Mercury
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