Article: Refusing census can land you in jail

People who refuse to take part in the national Census could be sent to prison or could face a fine of R10 000, Stats SA said on Saturday. "I am not sure why people would want to refuse, even if you are in political disagreement with the current government, it is your responsibility as a citizen to take part," spokesman Trevor Oosterwyk said.
 
Civil disobedience becoming more and more a problem as people lose faith in the government.
No trust in a corrupt government hell bent on self preservation through corruption and greed.

Many foreigners refuse to fill in the forms believing the government will deport them soon after.
 
Why do people let them into their homes? Let them do the census standing on the street.
They're not the police with a search warrant.

What I don't get is that they tried to visit my house 4 times last week while I was at work.
They should do the surveys on weekends when people are not at work if they want any sort of success.
 
Wow. The government is trying to do something right and according to international norms... Civil disobedience is one thing but refusing to fill in a census form is going to have absolutely zero impact on the government. If you want to protest, do something that has some effect OTHER than resulting in you not counting in SA...
I don't understand this resistance. I hate today's ANC and all they stand for but I really don't see the point in not taking part in a statistical exercise.

The government knows everything about me anyway via rica, FICA and all the other information and credit acts.
 
BBSA said:
This is such a wast of money, I would be surprised if they count half the population.
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The majority of people will be counted as most people don't suffer this paranoia and ill will displayed by some. Prepare to be surprised then.
 
Freshy-ZN said:
I love the way people throw in this or similar phrases as if that will end the argument in their favour! Rubbish.
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Who is arguing?

I stated a fact. Use it, don't use it. I don't care :)
 
Purely based on legal principle, the system they have employed to capture your data is not secure. It would be interesting to see this tested in court. I'd imagine it wouldn't be in their best interests to charge anyone in case it does not hold up in court.
 
R13... said:
The majority of people will be counted as most people don't suffer this paranoia and ill will displayed by some. Prepare to be surprised then.
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"ill will" ? So me not wanting to allow a stranger on my property is "paranoia and ill will", it's MY property, I decide who is welcome or not, not you or the government. The government has all my information already, what do they need a census for ? This just tells me their systems of accounting are flawed or those in charge of those systems are incompetent, a simple cross reference of all government departments (births, deaths, SARS, city planing, dept of labor ect) would get them all the stats they need to complete this census.
 
Sinbad said:
Wow. The government is trying to do something right and according to international norms... Civil disobedience is one thing but refusing to fill in a census form is going to have absolutely zero impact on the government. If you want to protest, do something that has some effect OTHER than resulting in you not counting in SA...
I don't understand this resistance. I hate today's ANC and all they stand for but I really don't see the point in not taking part in a statistical exercise.

The government knows everything about me anyway via rica, FICA and all the other information and credit acts.
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they should have tried to make right years ago. this is not trying to do something right. the government knew that there would be people who would take advantage of this and use the opportunity to rob people etc. only thing is there were those of us who were prepared for this sort of thing and said we not going to allow it to happen to us and decided to take a stand against crime. this was just another way to let crime into innocent people's lives and if the government didn't see that then shame on them.
 
Hang on. How many instances of people posing as census takers for criminal purposes have there been? A handful?

I submit that the percentage of drivers on the road under the influence of drugs or alcohol is much higher than the percentage of census workers who are criminally inclined. Are you going to refuse to use the road because of this? :-P
 
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Sinbad said:
Hang on. How many instances of people posing as census takers for criminal purposes have there been? A handful?

I submit that the percentage of drivers on the road under the influence of drugs or alcohol is much higher than the percentage of census workers who are criminally inclined. Are you going to refuse to use the road because of this? :-P
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That is the dumbest logic I have heard in a long time. Census people come at you with the direct intention of causing harm. Drunken drivers don't have this intention, their harm is due to a consequence of their actions.
 
Nicodeamus said:
That is the dumbest logic I have heard in a long time. Census people come at you with the direct intention of causing harm. Drunken drivers don't have this intention, their harm is due to a consequence of their actions.
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Rubbish. Drinking when you know you have to drive is a deliberate action.
Don't paint all census workers as bad. They aren't. My one was thick as pigs hit but had zero evil intent...

Anyway you miss my point which is that you have more chance of encountering a drunk driver than a crooked census worker. Intention is irrelevant. I was talking about the risk to you.
 
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What about refusing to fill in an Afrikaans paper because apparently the English forms are finnished ?

Tried but some words we just don't know, others like 'rolstoel', we used common words and figured it out (never knew that word), but others are very time consuming and difficult to understand.

Didn't allow the census worker in, told them at home to accept the form and not to let the person in.
I honestly believe that allowing a certain part of the population to fill out the census online would be much easier and much much cheaper.
 
Sinbad said:
Rubbish. Drinking when you know you have to drive is a deliberate action.
Don't paint all census workers as bad. They aren't. My one was thick as pigs hit but had zero evil intent...

Anyway you miss my point which is that you have more chance of encountering a drunk driver than a crooked census worker. Intention is irrelevant. I was talking about the risk to you.
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apples and oranges...
 
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