Government statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Annim has stated that 94 percent of the expected households have been enumerated so far after seven days’ extension in the on-going Population and Housing Census.
The remaining 6 percent that have not yet been enumerated, according to him, is as a result of unwillingness of respondents within that area to cooperate with the field officers assigned to do the work.
“Some of the remaining areas include Ga-West, Kpone Katamanso, Ga-North and Ga-South. These are fast growing areas and with some of them, indeed, listing and enumeration were still ongoing as at yesterday,” he said during a press briefing in Accra on the 2021 Population and Housing Census update.
Professor Annim said his outfit will continue to persuade and provide education to the areas refusing to cooperate so that the exercise will complete by 30th July, 2021.
He further assured the public of the quality of data being gathered, saying: “to quality assure work done by field officers, management of Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has mandated the conduct of spot checks in an entire enumeration area once a call is received from an individual who is yet to be enumerated in the area. This is done to count all other persons in that area who may not have reported that they are yet to be counted.”
Challenges
Addressing questions about challenges encountered during the exercise, he said all incidents that came up during the listing stages have been largely managed and little was reported during the second stage of the exercise. Among some of the challenges he listed were snake bites, motor accidents, boundary issues, among others.
On extra budget
He further stated that the extension of the Census will not demand for an extra budget due to arrangement made in the initial budget which covers additional mop-ups.
“There is always an anticipation of a mop-up exercise, so within the limit that we have now, as I indicated, the first one and the one to happen on the 30th of July is within our budget. Beyond that will impose some financial challenges with regards to our current budget,” he said.
He also said payment of the field officers will be fully made after the exercise comes to an end without any challenge as stated in the contract. He urged all citizens to cooperate so that they get counted to help provide an accurate data for the country.
