South Africa, Free State: Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) released the Census 2022 results on 10 October 2023, which revealed that the population of South Africa has increased from 51.7 million in 2011 to more than 62 million in 2022.
Yesterday, 18 November 2023, the Deputy Director General, Ashwell Jenneker, handed the results report to Free State Premier Mxolisi Dukwana.
The results show that the Free State population has grown by 8.0% from 2.7 million in 2011 to almost 2.9 million in the latest census. Free State is one of the smallest provinces, ranked eighth according to the results.
Some of the statistics released indicate that 90% of the population in the province is black Africans, 8% is white, 2.6% is Coloured, whilst Indian/Asian accounts for less than one percent of the population.
Salient issues from the results report:
- 65% of children aged 0-4 years in FS had access to some form of early childhood development (ECD) programme.
- Free State had the highest percentage of individuals aged 5–24 years attending educational institutions at 76,8% in 2022, increasing from 73,1% in 2011.
- The number of households in FS increased by around 22,000 since 2011. Average household size in FS has increased from 3,3 in 2011 to 3,5 persons per household in 2022
- Less than 10% of households in the FS lived in informal housing in 2022
- All municipalities in the FS have more than 80% of households having access to electricity in 2022
- In 2022, over four-fifths (82,4%) of households in the country had access to piped water either inside their dwelling or inside their yard. Only 3% of households in the FS reported not having access to piped water in 2022
- Households using flush toilets increased by 10,7 percentage points between 2011 and 2022
- Access to flush toilets increased by 9.2% over the last 10 years in the Free State. Just above 76% of FS households had access to flush toilets in 2022.
- 65.1% of households in the province had their refuse collected by the local authority at least once a week.
- 9 out of 10 households have access to a cell phone. Most households use cell phones to access the internet.
A week Premier Dukwana welcomed the report and committed his government to work harder to change the lives of the people of the Free State.
The Premier also thanked StatsSA for the sterling job they did.