News24 reports that newly released census data may undercut the perception that foreign nationals place strain on government services.

Statistics SA released its fourth democratic census on Tuesday, focusing on population and housing. The latest statistics recorded that the overall population in SA increased by around 10 million, with a total of 62 million people living in the country as of 2022. According to Stats SA data, more than 2.4 million immigrants call SA home, which equates to around 3% of the total population. Most immigrants come from the Southern African Development Community region. More than one million people come from Zimbabwe, which translates to 45.5% of the foreign national population, followed by around 400,000 people from Mozambique (18.7%) and over 220,000 people from Lesotho (10.2%). But, senior members of Stats SA have acknowledged the difficulty in counting foreign nationals, especially those who are undocumented. The census did not seek to find out whether foreign nationals were in the country legally. The only questions asked were where they were born and when they came to SA. Political analyst Ebrahim Fakir questioned whether the data was reliable. Well-known analyst Professor Susan Booysen also pointed out that the census statistics might not be entirely accurate, but said: "It will be a modest undercount of foreign nationals and not an overwhelming figure."

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Alex Mitchley, Belinda Pheto and Alex Patrick at News24 (subscriber access only)

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