South African History Online

Speech by President Mandela on the Results of Census 98

Pretoria, 20 October 1998

Minister of Finance
Head of Statistics South Africa
Distinguished
guests

When we embarked four years ago along the path of peace, unity and freedom,
our central mission as a nation was to build a better life for all South
Africans.

In deciding to hold a national census in 1996, five years earlier than might
have been expected, we were acting upon our urgent need for accurate
information, so that our plans should be based on the real situation.

A census under any circumstances is a mammoth undertaking. To organize a
unified national census, in just one year instead of the usual three years, in a
country only beginning to emerge from a system that fragmented every aspect of
social and political life, was a major feat in the transformation of our
institutions.

The Census itself was one of the defining milestones in the building of our
new nation. Census 96 and its army of one hundred thousand enumerators, marked a
break with our divided past; by reaching every part of the country; by using the
same methods for everyone; and by ensuring that as far possible everyone was
asked for information in their own language.

We should take this opportunity to say to all those men and women who made it
happen: Congratulations to you all!

At the end of the day we have detailed, all-inclusive, information about our
people which we can use to achieve our shared goals.

In breaking new ground, and so early in our transition, the census had to
deal with many difficulties and much had to be learned. It is in keeping with
the spirit of openness of our democracy, and the early need for information,
that preliminary estimates were for the first time shared with the public. But
it is also in the nature of such information that it might need revision, as
indeed proved to be the case.

No doubt the next Census will be still more accurate, building on the gains
of Census 96. But we do at last have results with which we can work, numbers
that count for the nation!

It will take time to absorb the full detail of this intricate picture of our
complex society. But the broad outlines should act as a clarion call to
rededicate ourselves, in every sector of our society, to the historic mission of
a generation charged with transforming South African society in order to
eradicate the poverty and imbalances that derive from our past.

They show a society in which the lines between rich and poor were, with
little qualification, the historical lines of a racially divided society.

They show a society which had enormous basic needs to be met, whether it be
in terms of access to clean water; electricity, telephones or schooling. By
measuring the extent of deprivation in October 1996, the results provide us with
benchmarks against which our performance, as government and nation, should be
measured year by year.

This picture was drawn mid-way through our country's first democratically
elected government, when the programmes of socio-economic change were only
beginning to gather pace.

We are right to take pride in the fact that in the two years since then, the
character of our society has been changing day by day, through an active
partnership of government, communities, and the structures of civil society
including the private sector. The installation since then of some three quarters
of a million telephones; the connection of about a million households to the
electricity grid; and the supply of clean water to another 1.8 million people do
improve the situation.

But the scale of inherited social inequality and deprivation, confirmed by
the results, makes our task one of many years and one in which reconstruction
and reconciliation; nation-building and development are all of critical
importance.

The results remind us that we have only started along the path towards that
goal which was at the heart of our nation's founding consensus: namely, to
overcome together the legacy of our divided past.

May the publication of this portrait of our nation strengthen our commitment
to building a democracy that is worthy of the name: a society in which the needs
of all South Africans, and especially the poor, are at the heart of the nation's
efforts.

I thank you.