That's a statistical quirk we are discussing! Let me just go back to something that we frequently lose in this debate and that is the interrelationship between the output of statistics and all of government. We seem to focus on this narrowly and not look at all of these issues together.
I think hon George, while drawing attention to Eastern Europe and the left, failed to draw attention to what was actually the biggest problem here, and that is the failure of the key statistical agencies in the United States to give any meaning or sense to the number of derivatives at play. And the costs of that are now measured in the lives of families where there is unemployment, homelessness and all manner of other devastation.
So, the issue of statistics in decision-making is something that we shouldn't ever gloss over. However, the point that hon Singh and hon Koornhof made about the interrelationship between the statistical outputs and planning for the future is something that is fundamentally important.
I want to ask the hon George to rest assured that the norms that we have applied in respect of Statistics SA - no prior citing and so on - will very much remain.
We must be able to draw on the outputs in order to improve on planning and resource allocation; but these norms are not up for negotiation and they never have been. And that is fundamentally important.
On the issue of what happened at the conclusion of the discussions, the outstanding questions were published in the Announcements, Tablings and Committee Reports, ATCs, last year. But the function shifted and Statistics SA had provided this. But I think there was an administrative glitch and we recognised that when we appeared before the committee last week, and we did correct it. We apologise for that.
I had explained to the chairperson of the portfolio committee that it is not something that happens in the course of things or because there was any malintent on the part of Statistics SA in its dealings with Parliament.
A number of members, Chair, have drawn attention to crime statistics; it is not something that Statistics SA is responsible for. Hon Singh spoke about Pietermaritzburg, but there are a number of other instances where this has happened. It is a sign of the problem of the cavalier attitude of those who should be collecting statistics. And you are going to find the same issues in other parts - in education and health, as I have mentioned in that context - and that's where the problem lies.
In respect of the poverty line, yes, it is something that we endeavoured to have available for discussion in South Africa. Like other issues, unfortunately, it became very highly politicised. Just a few weeks ago, there was a discussion in Nedlac to look at the methodology without dealing with the numbers. It was a very important and necessary discussion partly because of certain concerns expressed.
Some of the social partners believe that if you have a lower number then it will impact on wage bargaining. There are some NGOs who believe that two restaurant visits a month, four movie tickets a month, etc, should be added in because if we don't have those things, it means we are poor.
These were intense discussions and there will be some adjustment, but I want again to give the undertaking that this matter will be brought to Parliament. This is because to settle things just in terms of methodology is not something to which you can just apply a global methodology. You have to cut your own path and this is what made it difficult because if this very important poverty measure is caught in political contradiction, then it loses its meaning and its value as a tool for upliftment.
Of course, upliftment is one of the key issues. There has been a very important report - and president Sarkozy convened the panel last year that had at least two Nobel laureates, Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz, on it.
One of the questions they engaged with in the report was what? of course, the value of GDP as a measure of what? [Laughter.] Certainly, it doesn't measure access, happiness or any of the other things that people need in life. And because of the way in which it is aggregated and standardised, in statistics when you have one millionaire and nine penniless families in a row, the average doesn't look too bad.
This is part of the challenge of the aggregation that comes with the defined statistical methodology, so we can have a long discussion all year. [Laughter.] Those are fundamentally important issues.
The food security issue is, of course, also important and the problem is partly in what the hon Koornhof said. The number now is approaching 14 million South Africans who are benefiting from social security grants. But if that is only half of the eligible families then we will very soon have a social security system that is quite unaffordable.
These are fundamentally important issues that Parliament must be seized with. We musn't just criticise; these things ought to be the subjects of debate because we can't leave people behind and we can't build a system that this country will not be able to afford, or afford to the exclusion of all of the other things that the government has to do in the context of public services.
I don't know how many surveys we can do. I don't know what our capacity is to undertake these things with a great frequency, but one of the problems that we have heard and that has been raised in the context of this debate is that there are a number of outputs that actually are not utilised. The bulk of it, I would submit, is not utilised.
I would challenge members of this House to deal with their own conscience on this matter. When last have they looked at the GDP number, the CPI number, the PPI number, at the labour statistics, or any of those numbers and used it to inform the way in which they themselves take decisions on legislation, or anything else?
If this is what's happening in Parliament, how much bigger a problem is it in the rest of society? The way in which we process information and use these resources for decision-making, where we find ourselves in Parliament, is something that we have to take account of.
You know, the Statistician - General, last week made reference to one of the experiences we've had arising from Census 2001. The results were available in July 2003, so two years had already elapsed. Then it took about another year to put together the statistics of all of those municipalities. What was the number? It was 700 and something then. Two years after that, so almost five years had elapsed, a questionnaire was sent to the municipalities to ask them for the statistics on water sanitation, electrification, houses built and so on. And it was amazing just the quality of the match between the results of Census 2001 and what they then gave back to us five years later. They admitted that the source of their information was Census 2001.
Now this said very clearly that municipalities had no idea of what they were doing and when they were doing it. It confirms what Deputy Minister Cronin said last week, that municipal officials don't even get out and drive along the road to see where the potholes are. Never mind who has water, whether the water is filtered, or whether the sewerage works are actually operating.
These are the fundamental problems. It is a cavalier attitude that people have towards their tasks. They are not clear about why they earn their salary and unless we deal with this problem, we won't actually deliver a democracy that our people feel part of it.
Service delivery protests, therefore, are going to be the order of the day. The value of statistics as an early warning indicator for everything we are doing in government should never be undermined. [Laughter.]
Andiva tata. [I beg your pardon, sir.]
Oh, all right! I now want to turn to hon Swart. I don't know which Swart it was, Pik or Manie. No, it is not Pik, it's Manie. [Laughter.] You know, we all want more frequent censuses.
It is interesting that the United States and United Kingdom have a census once every 10 years, so we are not completely outside of the norm. Countries like Australia, Japan and Canada have it once every five years.
Part of doing this is arriving at a rational decision about the frequency and this big mobilisation of putting 120 000 people in the field and what you will actually do with the information.
And to try to answer from my own experience, what we did in the past is we conducted a census in 2001 and five years later, a large community survey. You try to ensure that you can develop in that respect, and you get better at that as you proceed. These, I think, are the big challenges.
Chairperson, the hon Sibhida spoke about how we must change the undercounting and I just hope that that receives a big round of applause. It is going to cause a lot of hard work, but we must remove the fear that people have about how they engage with officialdom when these surveys are done. This is because the census will be fundamentally important because we must recognise, 15 years on, where we are and what still needs to be done. Thank you very much. [Applause.]
Debate concluded.