By Thabo Mokgola

The recently released results of Census 2001 will be instrumental in assisting the Eastern Cape government with its planning goal, says Premier Makhenkesi Stofile.

Speaking at the first leg of the Statistics South Africa's provincial tour in King William's Town yesterday, Premier Stofile said all spheres of the provincial government would use the findings of the report. "The importance of these results for all sectors - from government to business and community organisations - cannot be overemphasised," said Stofile.

He said the results would assist the province in identifying trends that influenced service-delivery planning. The results also exposed problem areas that needed to be addressed. This included areas such as the former Transkei region where the Census results indicated there was the greatest backlog.

Speaking at the same occasion, Statistician General Pali Lehohla briefed the audience about pertinent outcomes of Census 2001.

He said the Eastern Cape, which has 6,4-million people, was still the third most populated province in South Africa. The recent count showed that in terms of the overall distribution of population in South Africa per province, the province showed a one percentage point decrease from 15,5 in 1996 to 14,4 in 2001.

Full statistics of the 2001 count can be accessed via Statistics South Africa's website.
- BuaNews

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