Q&A with statistician-general Risenga Maluleke on immunisation data - TimesLIVE

The department of health says its announcement last month that South Africa was facing an immunisation crisis was based on inaccurate data from Stats SA. Chris Barron asked statistician-general Risenga Maluleke ...

The department of health is blaming you for providing inaccurate population numbers. Do you accept that?

No, I don’t accept that. First, it’s the first time that I’ve heard that government departments start differing in public in the way that I have seen in these articles. I hope that the department was quoted out of context because it is grossly unacceptable that a government can operate like we are not one government. Number two, when we supply numbers of the population census 2022, as well as mid-year population estimates, rigorous methods are used to make sure that we protect the users.

If your numbers are accurate, then according to the department of health we’re facing an immunisation crisis. But the experts agree we’re not, don’t they?

Let’s put it this way. When we released the Census 2022 numbers there were two professors who said we had overestimated the population by a million. In Census 2022 we said the population was sitting at 62-million. As of now, when you look at our mid-year population estimates, we are sitting at 63.5-million.

Are you saying the department bungled?

I don’t engage in public spats with government departments in the way that has been happening. What I can tell you is that our numbers are solid.

How do you explain that based on your solid numbers, more than a third of babies 12 months or younger have not been vaccinated, when there has been no surge in hospital admissions of unvaccinated babies?

I wouldn’t be able to explain the methods the department of health has used. I would rather you raised that question with the department.

It’s not only the department of health that is sceptical about your Census 2022 numbers and mid-year population estimates, is it?

No, certainly, that I agree. We accept engagement, we accept criticism, and we will always explain our methods. That there is criticism doesn’t mean that our numbers are not solid.

How do you explain that South Africa’s top two demographers said your Census 2022 results were so riddled with anomalies they weren’t fit for purpose?

South Africa has a whole host of demographers. They were the only two that commented in public. It’s not Stats SA that said the numbers are fit for purpose. It’s the Statistics Council, after they listened to other experts, national and international.

Didn’t the International Monetary Fund say last month that Stats SA needs to improve the reliability of its stats?

The IMF has never come to South Africa to conduct a census or any economic activity. They come and take data and make estimates, and we engage them from time to time, but they’ve never conducted a single survey in South Africa. I have a lot of respect for them, but that doesn’t mean we in Stats SA do not know what we are doing.

A senior economist at Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies has also expressed scepticism about the reliability of your numbers, hasn’t she?

That people in the public space are raising scepticism doesn’t mean that our methods and the numbers that the methods have produced are not standing the test of time.