South Africa census will help better planning- Zuma

South Africa census will help better planning- Zuma

President Jacob Zuma has urged South Africans to participate in the country’s third national census since the attainment of democracy, saying it will help to build a sustainable legacy based on verifiable evidences and facts for the growth and development of South Africa.

Zuma said that the planned 2011 census in the country would help the government in planning for the future.

Validating projections

Zuma also said that the census would prove whether projections that put its population at around 50 million were actually true.

“We need to know if that is true and how that population is distributed in terms of our settlements,” Zuma said in a message marking  50-day countdown to the exercise. 

UN Millennium Development Goals

Zuma stated that the 2011 census would present another opportunity to understand how far the country had gone and what challenges including new ones needed attention.

He said it would determine its progress at achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as adopted by the Heads of State in 2000.  

Previous census

Report had it that South Africa had its last census in 2001, which put the population then, at 44.8 million.

Since then, latest statistics had revealed that it had grown to about 50 million. 

Zuma said that the 2001 census findings were very helpful as it showed that access to electricity in 1996 was 58 per cent while 70 per cent of South African households had access to electricity by 2001.

"We also knew that in 1996, there were 40.5 million people in South Africa. By 2001, the number had risen to 44.8 million people living within our borders,” he said.

The third national census is expected to begin on October 10.

He said that thousands of enumerators would visit almost 15 million households across the country and urged the cooperation of residents. 

NAN/Shakira