He recently released a chain of imperilling numbers: unemployment up at 27.6 percent and the highest change in youth unemployment in the first quarter. An economy shrinking by the largest percentage in the first quarter at negative 3.2 percent quarter-on-quarter.In 2016, I joined a delegation to New York to woo investors and make South Africa work post-Nhlanhla Nene’s unceremonious axing as finance minister.He admitted to the nature of the problems, but he also raised hope.
In 2003, I was immersed in building up Stats SA and miscalculated the Consumer Price Index. At the time the undercount of Census 2001 was coming in at double digit, a major reform in statistics was taking place with inconsistencies popping up.Attendant to the troubles of quality of statistics were allegations and aspersions of graft and impropriety thrown at my person, but these were the hallmarks of a noisy democracy.
What the deep state institution, Stats SA, has now done is to measure the effects of this scrapyard of institutions piling one on top of the other.