NATIONAL PLANNING COMMISSION: Chairperson, thanks, Rev Meshoe. Let me explain what happens from here: At this stage the census questionnaires - about 14 and a bit million of them - are in boxes in containers in most areas properly accounted for. They would've been scanned on zip-zip machines and had the data transferred from the bar codes to a central point.
The forms themselves now need to be transferred, and you can only deal with this if you scan the forms. One of the battles that we had in Census 2001 was that the light in the scanner didn't register the markings made by ballpoints. So, having invested in software, we had to go through the entire route again and according to the people involved in the process nothing registers on a questionnaire like a lead pencil, and it's for this reason it was used.
Of course there are risks in the process, but there are risks with everything we do and I think we'll only be able to see that, because, amongst other things, what happens now is that there's what is called a post-enumeration survey and a number of areas are chosen throughout the country randomly. Houses are revisited and then there's a comparison by household and then we'll be able to see.
Perhaps, in some of the areas where there have been reports - I think the one report that we got was from Kempton Park - we would go back and be able to establish and verify whether the fears were grounded or not. Thanks.