NATIONAL PLANNING COMMISSION: Chair, I would have to be untrue to myself and to this House, were I to vouch for the process across the entire country involving the numbers of people that we have. In the main I think that there's a very solid message and I think the hon Adv Swart referred to the fact that there's a very high sense of confidence about the census that has been conducted. Would you be able to satisfy everybody in the country? Difficult!
But as I indicated in response to the earlier question by Rev Meshoe, I think, given the letter that your constituent wrote, we know that there's a risk in some of the areas, and apart from the normal randomised enumerator areas selected for the post-enumeration survey, that would be one of the areas canvassed specifically to be able to check and verify whether there was any strange behaviour on the part of poorly trained enumerators. It's the only thing you can do in a situation like this.
The big, big battle has been to get up to as many houses as we possibly could. We set a very high benchmark for the census to attain in terms of the undercount. We want a single-digit number - you'll know we had double digits both in 1996 and 2001 - and I think that in terms of houses visited, we are now looking at a single-digit number, but the devil is in the detail and that's what we'll have to watch as we proceed.
Let me also just say that once the questionnaires arrive at the processing centre to the west of Pretoria and the scanning is done, long before it gets to me as the Minister responsible so that I can hand it over to the President, the Stats Council, with a number of actuaries and others, would oversee the process, and the seal of solidity of the process undertaken would actually come from the council, and that is a safety valve. It's therein that we have a guarantee of quality late in the process. Thank you.
Position adopted by National Planning Commission regarding nationalisation 269. The Leader of the Opposition (DA) asked the Minister in the Presidency: National Planning Commission:
(1) Whether the National Planning Commission (NPC) has been investigating the viability of nationalisation; if not, why not; if so, what progress has been made with the investigation;
(2) whether the NPC has taken an official position on the calls for nationalisation; if not, what is the position in this regard; if so, what are the relevant details?