Siweya said this is to enable government to plan for the long term.

“I am pleased that we can now have fresh data to help us with policy formulation and evidence-based decision making. Conducting a census is key as it is the only source of small area data.”

The Deputy Minister was speaking at a media launch of Census 2022 held at Statistics South Africa’s (Stats SA) head office in Pretoria on Tuesday.

Siweya who urged all social partners to get behind the Census 2022 project, was pleased with the state of readiness for the census when she visited the statistical agency’s head office in Salvokop.

This as Stats SA is finalising the training of field staff and has set up a call centre to assist everyone to be counted.

“We recruited our fieldworkers via online methods only and we will use only digital devices to collect data for Census 2022. Remote data collection is available, which should help those who want to do self-enumeration to participate from anywhere and at their own convenience.

“It has been over 10 years since we last conducted census in 2011. Census 2022 offers the country an opportunity to collect, compile and publish updated demographic, economic and social data for all persons in the country,” said Statistician-General Risenga Maluleke.

Census Project Director Calvin Molongoana said his team is ready to oversee the implementation of all processes to ensure a successful population and housing count.

“We want to ensure that each individual and each living quarters are enumerated. This is the stock taking of a country’s people, where and how people live,” Molongoana said.

The census was due to be conducted in October 2021 but was delayed due to disruptions caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Stats SA, the Census 2022 project is set to showcase Stats SA’s new technological advances as it leaps into a new era of digital data collection.

This is South Africa’s fourth population count post-democracy and the country’s first digital census where at least 165 000 fieldworkers will be deployed across the country to count everyone within the borders of South Africa.

National and Provincial training of permanent staff concluded by 13 January 2022 while virtual district training across the country commenced last week on 18 January. Distribution of working tools such as tablets and vehicles continues in all areas.