WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2008-01-08 Time: 00:00:00 Posted By: Jan
[So much for Mbeki’s grasp of science. And as usual, their own structures do not work, and things are not done the way they should be. I would not be surprised if figures were “massaged” a bit like our crime statistics. I have a deep distrust of our Govt’s statistics as it is. Jan]
A R600-million state-funded survey – which President Thabo Mbeki has used to show that the government was winning the fight against poverty – has been exposed as “unreliable” and ridden with “errors”.
Now Statistics SA, the government department responsible for the “Community Survey 2007” report, has itself warned potential users of the data to “be more cautious” when using the study.
The warning and release of a “revised” report comes two months after Finance Minister Trevor Manuel handed the survey to Mbeki, who later described it as an “important document about the progress we are making to meet the basic needs of the masses of our people”.
Quoting from the report in an article on his website, Mbeki said the survey showed that South Africans “say in these areas of delivery of meeting basic needs that 2007 is better than 2001 and indeed 2001 was better than 1996. Today is better than yesterday.”
| ‘Today is better than yesterday’ |
Mbeki also urged people to read the survey, which he suggested was an effective assessment that “would give us the scientific basis to determine whether we should change any of our policies and the direction that such possible change should take”.
Concerns raised by the Statistics Council of South Africa have, however, raised doubts about whether it can provide a “scientific basis” for future government policy.
According to a statement by Statistics Council of South Africa chairperson Howard Gabriels:
The revised survey report recorded half-a-dozen corrections made from the earlier survey.
Stats SA spokesperson Trevor Oosterwyk yesterday insisted, however, that the survey’s overall finding of improved social conditions had not been destabilised by the “health warnings”.
University of Cape Town economics professor Martin Wittenberg said the biggest concern about the survey was that the number of households it recorded for each province “apparently does not square”.
“It’s potentially quite disturbing… because if that is true, attempting to provide many services aimed at households will be like attempting to hit a moving target.”
Professor Paul Mostert, from the South African Statistical Association, pointed out that it was not the first time Stats SA had come under fire. In 2005, Statistician-General Pali Lehohla reportedly faced dismissal over a series of costly mistakes involving official statistics, which included its release of figures showing that manufacturing production was down by 5,1 percent, whereas it had declined by 1,2 percent.