Statistics lie at the heart of the government's programme of action, and the way in which its progress is being measured.
However, it is not only national statistics that form the basis of monitoring and measuring. Data attached to lower levels in the geographical hierarchy are becoming increasingly central to South Africa's evolving system of statistics.
This is reflected in point 10.
The nation's 284 municipalities form one of the central geographical hierarchies for economic and social mapping. This entails attaching data to each of these municipal areas and monitoring changes in that data over time.
The development of an integrated business register, through which the geocoding of economic enterprises can be undertaken (that is, linking economic activity to specific geographical locations), is one of the ways in which economic information can be attached to specific areas.
The recently launched non-financial census of South Africa's municipalities provides another way of attaching data to municipal and provincial geographies.
This census measures the level of development and performance of municipalities, and provides information for planning and monitoring.
It allows national and provincial governments to analyse the actual services provided by municipalities in terms of water, electricity, solid waste management, and sewerage and sanitation.
Since this was a census, not a sample survey, information was gathered from all 284 municipalities.
The results indicate that the number of households receiving basic services from municipalities increased substantially between June 30 2002 and June 30 2003.
Household refers here to a municipal billing unit or technical delivery point, not the more social definition of household used in some of Stats SA's other publications.
The municipal service that showed the biggest percentage increase in delivery was water, where the number of households connected rose by 23.6 percent, or 1 499 381, during the 12 months to June 30 2003.
This was followed by sewerage and sanitation (1 166 523 households, or 22.3 percent), solid waste management (1 106 445 households, or 19.9 percent) and electricity (244 028 households, or 6.3 percent).
In terms of employment, there were an estimated 241 494 municipal positions at the end of June 2003, an increase of 13.8 percent from June 30 2002. Of these, 82.6 percent were occupied by full-time employees, while 15.8 percent of posts were vacant. The remainder involved part-time employment.
Municipalities were delivering water to an estimated 7.8 million households at the end of June 2003.
Of these, 5.9 million households had access to free basic water, 41.7 percent more than 12 months earlier.
At the end of June 2003, municipalities were delivering electricity to about 4.1 million households, which excludes the households serviced directly by Eskom. Of these, 57.3 percent had access to free basic electricity.
The 2.4 million households receiving free basic electricity from municipalities in 2003 represented an increase of 48.7 percent from a year earlier.
About 6.4 million households were receiving sewerage and sanitation services from municipalities as at 30 June 2003. Of these households, 44.3 percent had access to free basic sewerage and sanitation services, an increase of 73.6 percent on the previous year.
Municipalities were delivering solid waste removal services to 6.7 million households in 2003. Of these, 1.9 million households had access to free basic solid waste services, a rise of 84.8 percent from a year earlier.
The 216-page report on the June 30 2003 non-financial census of municipalities attaches data gathered to both provinces and municipalities, and - together with the previous year's municipal census - provides a solid benchmark from which to measure and monitor progress and change at municipal level.
Pali Lehohla is South Africa's statistician-general and head of Statistics South Africa. For more information on Stats SA and its statistical outputs, including the non-financial census of municipalities, visit www.statssa.gov.za, or contact user services on (012) 310-8600. For details of the government's 2005 programme of action, visit www.gov.