Last week, Statistics SA's senior management presented the agency's forward work programme to parliament's finance portfolio committee.
Enhancing statistics on the life circumstances of South Africa's population.
In a busy two-week period, key data have been published relating to each of these priority areas.
On Tuesday Stats SA released estimates of economic growth for the first quarter. This showed GDP growing at an annualised rate of 4.2 percent, higher than the revised corresponding growth for last year's fourth quarter of 3.2 percent.
Contributors to the increase in economic activity for the first quarter of 2006 were the finance, real estate and business services industry; the wholesale and retail trade, hotels and restaurants industry; the manufacturing industry; the transport and communications industry; and the construction industry.
GDP measures change in economic activity for all sectors of the economy, and therefore relies on a range of datasets that each report on a different part of the economy.
Regular users of statistics will remember that the monthly indicator of the production of mining products was recently revised from the second quarter of 2005 to date. This in turn required the revision of the estimates of value added for the mining and quarrying industry and subsequently the GDP.
These sorts of revisions are not the result of methodological changes to the compilation of GDP, as erroneously reported in the media last week, but are based on continuous improvement of the basic statistics that feed estimates of GDP.
GDP data also record the performance of the economy on a sectoral basis, which can be contrasted with the overall performance of the economy to provide a different view on the drivers of the economy. A common practice is to exclude the impact of the agricultural sector on the economy, given that it can have volatile behaviour caused by nature.
This calculation shows that the seasonally adjusted real annualised value added by the non-agricultural industries increased by 4.7 percent in the first quarter of 2006. The primary sector (agriculture and mining) decreased at an annualised rate of 4.1 percent, the secondary sector (manufacturing, electricity, construction) increased by 5.5 percent and the tertiary sector (trade, transport, government, services) increased by 5.3 percent in the quarter.
Last week saw the release of the latest data on the consumer price index (CPI) and production price index. Again, some sections of the media appear to have misinterpreted Stats SA's forward work programme, reporting that an improvement in the way in which information is collected for the CPI entails major revisions to the way consumer price indices are compiled.
The introduction of new collection methodologies relates to the nature of the survey instrument being used, not to the construction of the index itself. In the new system, prices for products available for sale in certain retail stores are collected by Stats SA staff directly observing and recording these prices at the relevant store. Previously, price information was obtained through questionnaires completed by store managers or at the head offices of retail chains.
While the new method will improve the quality of information collected, the way in which the CPI is compiled, including composition of the basket of goods and services monitored, the relative importance attached to each, the processing systems and the way in which the data are reported, are unchanged.
Yesterday saw the release of the general household survey (GHS) for 2005. The GHS is an annual household survey specifically designed to measure various aspects of the living circumstances of South African households. Key findings focus on the five broad areas covered by the GHS: education, health, activities related to work and unemployment, housing and household access to services and facilities.
As one element in poverty monitoring, the survey reports that, over the past four years, the percentage of households in which an adult went hungry declined steadily, from 6.9 percent in 2002 to 4.2 percent in 2005. Last year, in 4.7 percent of households at least one child went hungry, fewer than in earlier years. It stood at 6.7 percent in 2002, 7 percent in 2003 and 5.1 percent in 2004.
The GHS also confirms a gender determinant of poverty: the percentage of female-headed households in which an adult went hungry was higher than that of male-headed households.
Information on mortality and causes of death in South Africa for 2003 and 2004, as recorded in official death notification forms, was also released yesterday. This outlines emerging trends, differentials and patterns of mortality by selected demographic and geographic characteristics, and presents statistics on the causes of death based on information from the death notification forms. The main focus is on the underlying causes of death, as this is used for public health interventions.
Data released in the past week are well aligned to Stats SA's forward work programme priorities. More importantly, they lay a basis for measuring and monitoring development targets established by the government, including achieving 6 percent GDP growth between 2010 and 2014, halving the poverty rate, and improving access to services.
Pali Lehohla is South Africa's statistician-general and head of Stats SA. For more information on Stats SA and its outputs, including reports on the general household survey and mortality and causes of death, visit www.statssa.gov.