Mbombela - Mpumalanga Premier David Mabuza has asked residents to give their full cooperation in next year's census.
Mabuza, who was speaking during the launch of Census 2011 in Mbombela on Tuesday, said the census was an essential public administration tool that could help to ensure service delivery.
"A census is a vital tool to measure progress in the province, and will also help the government's understanding of this province to improve service delivery and public administration. Therefore, all Mpumalanga citizens need to stand up and be counted," said Mabuza.
He also stressed the importance of a census in determining development needs in the province.
"As a province, we need reliable and timely data on population, including size, geographical and administrative distribution, characteristics and composition in order to plan and enable economic and social development at national, provincial and ward levels," he said.
He said 9 000 field workers would be employed by Statistics South Africa to undertake the census in Mpumalanga.
"We should be motivated and strive to collectively come together to reduce the previous population census undercount of 15.6 percent to zero, if possible," he added.
The previous census in 2001 put Mpumalanga's population at three million people, which was 7 percent of South Africa's 40.5 million people counted at the time.
