Pretoria - Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) on Thursday presented its annual report to Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration and Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation.
In its annual report, Stats SA showed that it had obtained yet another clean audit opinion from the Auditor General.
Statistician General Pali Lehohla said the organisation’s recent move to its new green building in Salvokop, Tshwane, is a momentous occasion that will ensure that the organisation continues to be efficient.
“This resulted in improved efficiency and cost reduction as the organisation eliminated rental fees of four buildings across Tshwane,” said Lehohla.
Stats SA is leading preparations for the country to host the United Nations (UN) World Data Forum next year. This will be the first ever UN congregation of digital revolution experts.
Stats SA has started with the planning for a National Citizen Satisfaction Surveys (CSS), following the successful conclusion of the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) CSS last year. In conjunction with other surveys, the CSS is instrumental in providing a statistical information frame for coherent policy decisions by the state.
The report noted that the Community Survey (CS 2016) conducted earlier this year signifies the organisation’s awareness and embracing of the digital revolution, as the survey boasted a paperless data collection through the use of mobile devices, which tremendously reduced the turnaround time for the release of the results.
CS 2016, which is the second largest undertaking after a census, required that some priorities be shifted in order to ensure that there are sufficient resources to conduct the survey.
The Statistician General also indicated that Stats SA continues to measure changes in the economy through periodic indicators in the areas of trade and industry, price stability, government and financial statistics, private financial statistics and national accounts.
Stats SA also measures changes in society through statistics focused on the following areas: poverty and inequality, labour, health and vital statistics, as well as social and population statistics.
When coming to its staff complement, the organisation continues in its quest to champion transformation and inclusivity by ensuring that it recruits and retains a staff complement that is representative of the South African population.
Currently, nearly half (40.7%) of senior managers are female and about 1.2% of all employees are people living with a disability. As at the end of the financial year, the organisation had a vacancy rate of 8.8%.
Only less than 1% of high impact organisational targets were not achieved in the 2015/2016 financial year. This was largely due to lack of resources as these were reprioritised to the Community Survey.
In order to comply with the Constitutional Court judgment that Stats SA should assist the Independent Electoral Commission with electorate addresses, the organisation is in the process of utilising its expertise on the use of spatial geography technology to ensure that there are addresses for all eligible voters. - SAnews.gov.za
