Pretoria - Cabinet has welcomed the results of Census 2011 and commended StatsSA on "the extraordinary achievement of releasing the results within 12 months".
"While the results point to challenges, they also tell a convincing story of a country that has greatly developed and improved in the past 18 years," said Collins Chabane, Minister in The Presidency for Performance Monitoring, Evaluation and Administration in Pretoria on Thursday.
He was briefing media following Cabinet's ordinary meeting on Wednesday.
Chabane said Cabinet called on all sectors to use the results to better inform planning and implementation within their specific areas.
The Census 2011 showed that South Africa's population has swelled from 40.5 million in 1996 to 51.7 million in 2011. The average age of the population was 25
The population of black Africans slightly increased from the last census in 2001 to 79.2%. The country's Indian/ Asian population remained constant at 2.5% in the 2011 results. The results showed that the percentage of the white population declined slightly from 9.6% in the 2001 census to 8.7% in 2011.
South Africa's third national census since the dawn of democracy in 1994 was conducted from 10 October to 31 October 2011. The Census provides policy makers about the population's access to services and where it resides, among other things. - SAnews.gov.za
