WHILE the census of 1996 brought hope of mobilising South Africa, our society is to be mobilised differently.
This is because of the failure of the promise which the National Planning Commission captured in their remarks pointing to an observation that government failed in its role to lead in the deliverance of the National Development Plan.
Clergy at the beginning of September convened at Robben Island to announce that they would be holding a “leave no one behind” discussion in October, given the deeply flawed economic system of South Africa that has failed to deliver on the promise of making bread affordable.
The 1996 census of South Africa, held from October 10 to the 31st was a groundbreaking moment in the making of a new nation.
Under the slogan of “Count Us In”, it captured the mood of the nation and heralded the UN Agenda 2030 of Sustainable Development Goals, wherein no one is left behind.
The administrative challenges were many.
But in the main the key one was that of bringing together 11 administrative units of self-governing territories, independent homelands and what was then considered South Africa which dominated the economic and political sphere, a feature of white hegemony.
Time was not on our side nor was the budget. I recall at one of those difficult moments on budgeting, Dr Bernie Fanaroff, who was from the Reconstruction and Development Programme from the Presidency, coming through with a notebook to discuss and negotiate as to whether we could fit in a R330 million envelope.
Our reply to him was if you tell us which province to leave out, the envelope will be easy to fit in.
Ultimately, an allocation of R650 million was made for the census. Even then, that was not enough.
The time constraint gnawed on us like a hungry lion. At 12 months before October 10, 1996, Dr Mark Orkin had just been installed three months prior into office and I joined him immediately with the task of running the new assignment of the very first post-apartheid census.
The sheer size of forward logistics and the plans and preparations for a simultaneous nationwide programme of visiting in excess of ten million households in which resided an average of 4.2 people per household required meticulous planning of mapping and recording dwelling units in which people reside.
This initial phase mobilised an army of about 2 000 people who were spread across the country, bundling the country into workable bushels of 120 each.
These bundles became the enumeration areas, with each of these to be covered by one census taker from October 10 up to the 31st.
Against these base numbers were to be determined the number of questionnaires to be printed. Enthused by the new democracy, we made it abundantly clear that people could choose the language of their questionnaire.
My god, democracy and nightmare can be strange bedfellows. Burdened with constrained budgets, the lack of knowledge of what the preferred language at destination will be added to the nightmare of democracy.
First the quantity in which different languages would be printed and the colour coding scheme that would correspond with the printing and the likely distribution matrix per enumeration area became a vexed question that emerged after October 10 when democracy came in touch with the nightmare of individual people.
The bold project of language choice was not pleasurable at all. In the end census takers took a pragmatic root, with census questions that were filled being almost 95% English.
This approach was not experimented with in 2001 and in all subsequent censuses. It is possible however in the future to use all official languages thanks to the digital age. Where people preferred to belong by province versus the perceived arbitrary drawing of provincial boundaries raised yet a massive challenge.
When last I visited Ha Sekhukhune in Limpopo, I was reminded by the peoples of Chief Rammopodi from Motetema, Taflekop and Nebo for putting up a relentless battle against being counted in Limpopo.
Their province of preference was Mpumalanga. The instrument of counting included race, and the classification was the four-race model of African black, coloured, Indian and white.
To their irritation the San, Khoi and Nama put up a relentless battle refusing to be counted if they were seen as coloured.
What took the cake, a lesson in cultural diversity, so that no one is left behind haunts me to this day is what happened to the Lemba people of Venda known as the African Jews.
The biggest disappointment was that people representing labour movement and community disappeared from the consultative framework, leaving white South Africans and black foreigners to preside over this crucial matter.
Convinced by a myopic knowledge frame that all Jews can only be white, the black Jews under the category religion were exterminated and left without religion.
The sorry episode of the Lemba that were denied their religion by the Statistics Office at the time was never corrected. The clergy are taking an important step in correcting the lives of South Africa.
They will lead crucial discussions with society on leaving no one behind as South Africa teeters on the verge of a failing state.
Whilst the statistician-general survived the noose of religion, the political landscape cannot survive the neglect that has made bread not to be affordable.
They have selected October 9-11 to occupy the space and never to leave it.
Dr Pali Lehohla is the director of the Economic Modelling Academy, a Professor of Practice at the University of Johannesburg, a Research Associate at Oxford University, a board member of the Institute for Economic Justice at Wits and a distinguished Alumnus of the University of Ghana. He is the former Statistician-General of South Africa
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