House Chairperson, too often our society is personified by shocking violence. These days bring with them the real possibility of brutality on the platinum mines; of the bloodthirsty rape and murder of women; and of the massacre of our soldiers in other countries' wars. This violence is measured in headlines and column inches; in a breakdown of trust between one another; and in a slow and steady rise in the risk investors associate with operating in our country.
But, as Bobby Kennedy so eloquently said:
... there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night.
In a speech, the day after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr, he said:
This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colours. This is a slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter. This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all.
This is the violence whose effects are measured by Statistics SA. The slow grind of poverty worsened year after year by the increase in the price of electricity or fuel or public transport, or the creeping desperation of a young South African unable to find her first job, because the only jobs available require work experience. This is why the work of Statistics SA is so critically important. While savage crime has the power, sometimes, to jolt us into action, soon after it occurs, we need to measure the violence of institutions, inaction and slow decay to make them real to South Africans.
So, Minister Manuel, the problem with the unemployment statistics is that broad unemployment, which includes those that have given up looking for work, is not sliced and diced by population group, sex, industry or age, as the narrow definition is, presumably because in the labour force survey, it is not the official definition. That is the reform we are calling for. That will help to make the unemployment statistics real to our people. But that said, without the surveys, estimates and research of Statistics SA, it would be almost impossible to understand the real plight of our people, or to design policies that can start to turn the situation around.
House Chairperson, the Statistician-General is a colourful figure, who figuratively and sometimes literally in his famous yellow suit, brightens up meetings of the Standing Committee on Finance with his jokes and anecdotes. He is also unafraid to weigh in when policy issues of national importance are discussed. We note and welcome his recent support for the youth wage subsidy, which remains unimplemented three years after it was announced, when he said:
But I think if one looks at the net end to society, I suspect a with- youth-wage-subsidy environment is a much better option for South Africa in the long term than a without-subsidy environment.
You can speak to the Statistician-General if you have a problem with that. We also welcome his reported comments on the education system, where he pointed out that the 30% pass mark was not helping the youth, and was among factors making some of them unattractive to prospective employers. There are too few voices from the top of government prepared to stand up to the reform-blockers, the stonewallers, and those who work for their own narrow interests against the wider interests of our children and unemployed youth. We salute the Statistician-General's courage and hope that this government is listening. But the Statistician-General's most important job is to manage the work of Statistics SA, and there is no work done by Statistics SA that is more important than the census.
The data from last year's R3,4 billion census will affect every single item in the national, provincial and municipal budgets. It will define the allocations for departments and provinces, and influence the priorities of every sphere of government. It is important that the census results and processes are beyond reproach. But, unfortunately, there are serious questions about the job that has been done. Members must please note that it is not the DA that is raising these questions. They come from Statistics SA insiders; demographers who have worked with the institutions for 15 years; and senior staff with long records of contribution at the highest level.
When you see University of Cape Town, UCT, demographers, Professor Rob Dorrington and Associate Professor Tom Moultrie, who were retained by Statistics SA to review the census data, given 10 days to work on it when they were promised two months, it is a concerning sign. They identified a serious anomaly in the data where the birth rate, for no apparent reason, appears to have spiked 20% in the past decade. They also identified problems with the provincial population distribution last year, and their concerns appear to have been validated by the publication this week of the mid-year population estimates that, to quote the gentlemen concerned:
... portray a version of the age structure of the South African population that is quite different from that of the census. These two versions cannot both be correct.
These are serious allegations from credible insiders, and they could have real implications for spending on health and education. I ask the Minister to deal with these specifically in his reply. But it was not only external consultants who raised serious questions about Census 2011. The Deputy Director-General of Statistics SA, Jairo Arrow, and the senior statistician, Marlize Pistorius, have now been sidelined by the institution, because they apparently would not support the Statistician- General's estimates of a lower undercount than the official figures; and because they would not reopen the post enumeration survey at the request of the Statistician-General.
Statistics SA and the Statistics Council have rubbished these allegations in general, but they have never provided specific answers to the critical questions raised by these individuals who, given their long track record of service to the institution, have no obvious axe to grind or hidden agenda. I again ask the Minister to respond to these serious charges and explain why Statistics SA was in such a rush to publish the results only 12 months after the census was conducted, when most of our peers in the developing world traditionally take 18 to 24 months after a census to publish their findings. He should also deal with the general decline at the institution, reflected in the Auditor-General's 2012 report. The Minister covered the highlights of that, but I think that they reflect a deep deterioration in Statistics SA's audit outcomes, and were the basis of this year's qualified audit.
The Auditor-General found that 58 officials were supplying other parts of government without approval from the department. He identified that one in three invoices were not settled within 30 days, making them essentially illegal in terms of the Public Finance and Management Act, PFMA, and he counted a significant number of "no shows" for hotels and plane tickets. Minister, you will forgive us for finding it hard to believe that, if this government can pay out R15 million in social grants per month, they lack the systems to pay census suppliers on time.
I think you will agree that this is an alarming state of affairs, and it is telling that the Statistician-General and his team did not provide much reassurance that they had a turnaround plan when they appeared before our committee last week. They complained, instead, about the fact that their budget had declined, but it is difficult to find a basis for this decline. Budgets will naturally increase into a census year and drop off afterwards. Furthermore, in a committee meeting last year, the Minister asked the Statistician-General to justify the increases that were there and appearing in the budget. He was unable to do so, perhaps explaining why this year we see the increases decline through 2014-15 budgets.
But, one of the most alarming areas of nonperformance concerns a project that the Minister covered, that requires co-ordination between Statistics SA, the SA Revenue Service, Sars, and the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission, CIPC, a single business register. This is a key intervention to cut red tape and make it cheaper and easier to register a business in our country. I call it an alarming failure because it highlights how many of the areas of weakness in individual departments and entities are often multiplied into abject failures by a government defined by a silo mentality, where officials and politicians often seem more interested in protecting their own turf than collaborating to introduce reforms.
Two years ago, the Minister told us this policy framework and draft legislation had been developed and was on its way for Cabinet approval, for implementation in 2013. In 2013, we are advised that internal challenges at the CIPC have delayed the project, and up until today, we have no idea when it will be implemented. Now that the Minister has tabled a revised timeframe, it is critical that he uses his cross-cutting influence in government to influence the CIPC, to ensure that they can end this indifference and inaction that is delaying the delivery of this key project.
Statistics SA has so much to work with, a R1,7 billion budget; a team that is regularly able to conduct credible surveys across this vast country; and an approach to technology and innovation that delivered the truly impressive Roambi Application that allows South Africans to get to grips with the data that defines our country. But, it is now up to the leadership of Statistics SA to fix the internal problems that have resulted in the census making headlines for all the wrong reasons, and led to a qualified audit report. For this, and the task of co-ordinating projects of the single business register across government, the Minister will be held politically responsible. I ask him to deal with these serious issues in full.
If these things can be done, then Statistics SA can expose this violence of institutions, indifference, inaction and slow decay, using credible data unmarred by scandal. That is the first step towards turning the tide against this violence that might not capture the headlines, but that is conducted daily against the people of this country ... [Time expired.] [Applause.]