A Committee on Planning and Economic Development in Parliament are touring the nation sensitizing stakeholders across the country about the Mid-Term Census due to start on 19th April 2021. The committee for the South and East regions has ended a one day engagement with stakeholders from Kono, Kenema and Kailahun districts in the eastern region at the NaCOVERC conference hall in Kenema.
Addressing stakeholders the media representative to the committee Hassan Koroma spoke about the importance of Mid-Term Census to an individual, the community, the state, organizations in and out of the country in terms of national development. He called on all to go through the census by so doing most of the lapses that occurred during the last housing census will be taken care of in the interest of national development. He said although there are some challenges yet still efforts are being made to address it.
Participants welcome the idea of census but said it is not timely as the two weeks period is not enough for enumerators to cover the hard to go areas. They also point out that there is not enough sensitization across the nation about the census, some paramount chiefs vent out that they are not fully involved in all the processes especially in the area of support.
Some participants called on the government to postpone the census to a later date so that all challenges they are now experiencing will be addressed.
SM/16/03/2021
By: Saffa B. Moriba in Kenema