PALI LEHOHLA | Census and sensitivities: the building blocks of SA’s post-apartheid statistics

In 1989 when Stellenbosch intellectuals and students visited the ANC in Lusaka, Zambia, and the Pretoria intellectuals were protesting the gesture, Prof Sampie Terreblanche of Stellenbosch University would remark that the verkrampte Tuks were behind the times.

We were at a conference of the newly formed Demography Association of Southern Africa (Demsa) held in Stellenbosch in 1989. This is where I met a Pan-African of note from Nigeria who made his mark at the turn of democracy in South Africa. He is no more. Dr Oluwole Adegboyega passed on in his village in Nigeria.

I met Dr Adegboyega at this conference that was typically dominated by the Afrikaner intelligentsia, and key among them were Prof Sadie and Mostert. Prof Simkins was also there. Dr Adegboyega, who was based at the UNFPA in Botswana, delivered a paper that not only struck a chord with me but I had the pleasure of hanging out with him.

Having studied in West Africa, connecting with a Nigerian was easy and we both knew Prof Chukuka Okonjo, who was the director of the United Nations Regional Institute for Population Studies at the University of Ghana, where I studied. We discussed the challenges of demographics in racialised South Africa, as a socioeconomic and political challenge but also an intellectual one. There were three black demographers.

Three years down the line, in 1991, Prof Akiiki Kahimbaara, who had just joined Bophuthatswana Statistics, where I was the director of the office, confronted the question of what a post-apartheid statistics system should be. We convened a national Bophuthatswana conference on the importance of statistics.

This template, we surmised, would serve as a post-apartheid template. But for this to have the necessary drive I recalled my discussion with Adegboyega in Stellenbosch I referred back to the Demsa organising committee and asked for his contact details. I got them and immediately called him to invite him to our conference in Bophuthatswana. He said it would be difficult for him to come to a homeland. I persuaded him and asked him to find a way. He came with a fellow staff member of the UNFPA.

It was a benchmark conference that excited Daniel Mogami, who was the secretary of economic affairs and was inspired by intellectual reasoning. From then on Mogami would support the training programme that we got from Statomet for our staff at Bophuthatswana Statistics. Not only did we get funding for training but we got a bigger budget to have a working statistics office.

In 1984 I had told the Central Statistical Services (CSS) off on the content and planning of the census and said I would go my way and I did not need them. I recall coming from the Pretoria meeting fuming and in the morning going to Motale Phirwa, who headed data processing, and I said to him, "We are on our own, you are going to write the programme for data capture and we shall use the System 38 to capture. With Pretoria CSS in respect of the census of 1985, we are done."

I was successful in mounting the 1985 Census of Bophuthatswana, and the Development Bank of Southern Africa found the detail of the data and quality thereof as crucial for their development mission. Based on this massive success Mogami would find our programme and plan attractive and palatable, and we got maximal support from him and then-minister Keikilame.

When the tide turned against Bophuthatswana, Mogami and Keikilame were thrown out with the government of President Manyane Mangope. And into this space came Prof Job Mokgoro, who had been my counterpart from the planning department and I in statistics in Bophuthatswana. Kahimbaara and I showed him our plan and he agreed with us.

The next big step was the planning for the census of South Africa which was now due in 1995. Who did the United Nations fall on? Adegboyega, who was based in Botswana, and Sam Sorhatu, who was at the United Nations Statistics Division, led the mission to assess the state of readiness for South Africa to undertake a census in 1995. Adegboyega and I were rejoined and our strategic work with Kahimbaara resonated.

The protestations of the CSS could not fly because I had in 1985 declared unilateral independence from them, and my track record in successfully mounting the census of 1985 and 1991 of Bophuthatswana spoke volumes. But with Kahimbaara we roped in Prof Hermanus Geyer of Potchefstroom in the interrogation of regional science in South Africa and how such should inform the transformation away from the apartheid space.

The trio of us were central to the demarcation of the North West during the Transitional Local Councils formation of North West. Leshaba, Nchochoba and Sathege relied heavily on the input from what was BopStats.

I owe Wole Adegboyega a ton of gratitude for the transformation of Stats SA, and statistics in South Africa owes a lot to that initial Demsa conference in Stellenbosch in 1989. The mighty organisation continues in its successful journey to date. May his soul rest In peace

In fact, in October 1994, we called a meeting of all RDP offices to now extend the 1992 conference of post-apartheid statistics. The meeting was held at Rooigrond and I had invited Dr Treinach Du Toit, the then head of the Central Statistical Services. He instructed me not to call the meeting. I wrote back to him and told him that he was simply invited, and if he declined, it was fine, we would share the report and recommendations. We did and he was livid because one of the recommendations was that the position of head of the CSS be advertised.

The UN mission led by Sam Sorhatu and Adegboyega presented their findings on the state of readiness for South Africa. I recall vividly the date of the dinner where all consulted came, Dr Du Toit included. When I stepped in with my West African agbada I could sense Du Toit shrink when I greeted him with a very emphatic handshake.

The report by Sorhatu and Adegboyega was far-reaching, with major implications for the CSS and its capacity to transform and comply with the agenda for the new South Africa. It called for the postponement of the census for a later date and the formation of a consultative and advisory committee for the census. The report recommended the postponement of the census to 1996 from 1995.

In anger, in early 1995 Du Toit declared me persona non grata in respect of statistical operations in South Africa. He in fact said I would not be a member of the advisory committee on the census and he stopped me at the door from entering the meeting in February 1995. Dr Mokgoro, who was the director-general of the North West, stepped in. That was the last straw for Du Toit. Howard Gabriels, who had responsibility to CSS from minister Jay Naidoo’s office, took Du Toit on. His post was immediately advertised and in July 1995 Dr Mark Orkin was appointed the head of the office. I was immediately seconded to the CSS to head the census.

Adegboyega was appointed as the UNFPA adviser on the census of South Africa for 1996. That was the beginning of a long journey with Dr Adegboyega, from whom Hennie Loots, who was my deputy in the census, and I learnt a lot over five years. We spent miles on the road, hours in the office and weekends in our homes, where the discussions were eye on the ball of the census of 1996. We fraternised with him.

I owe Wole Adegboyega a ton of gratitude for the transformation of Stats SA, and statistics in South Africa owes a lot to that initial Demsa conference in Stellenbosch in 1989. The mighty organisation continues in its successful journey to date. May his soul rest In peace.

Dr Pali Lehohla is a professor of practice at the University of Johannesburg, a research associate at Oxford University, a board member of Institute for Economic Justice at Wits and a distinguished alumni of the University of Ghana. He is the former statistician-general of South Africa.