Question NW741 to the Minister in the Presidency

Reply:

(1) Noting the extension given to Statistics South Africa for the completion of Census 2022, what are the implications of the funding that was set aside for the exercise;

At this stage Stats SA still envisages to be within the budgeted funds for the Census Programme. The major costs that will be incurred as a result of the extension are vehicle hire, salaries for field staff and IT related costs. Due to the challenges experienced with data collection systems and recruitment, data collection did not commence as planned and was implemented in a staggered manner. As a result, expenditure for the previously mentioned items have been below what was budgeted. Accordingly reduced expenditure is expected for 21/22 and higher expenditure is expected for 22/23. As the bulk of these activities will be straddling the end of the financial year there could be a possibility that allocated funding would need to be rolled over. Engagements with National Treasury have begun in this regard.

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(2) whether there has been an increase of the budget; if not, what is the position in this regard; if so, with what amount has the budget increased?

No increase has been tabled for the Census budget. Close monitoring is in place and a reassessment will be done as Stats SA gets close to completing the census data collection to assess if any additional resources are required to deal with the tail end in this regard.

Thank You.