Statistician General, Statistics Sierra Leone, Professor Osman A. Sankoh has on Tuesday 20th October 2020 at their office on A.J. Momoh Street in Freetown disclosed that the midterm population and housing census which was scheduled to commence on 4th December 2020 has been postponed to 19th April 2021. Professor Sankoh made this disclosure during the commemoration of World Statistics Day, celebrated on 20th October each year. This year’s theme is ‘connecting the world with data that we can trust’.
He said the coronavirus has affected some areas of their preparation, key among them: movement of high level technical personnel (international consultant), procurement of digital materials required for the census, among others. Consequently, Professor Sankoh further disclosed that due to the aforementioned circumstances, the institution is constrained to make adjustment to the timeliness for critical activities including the date for the actual enumeration. “We are therefore conducting census on the 19th April 2021,” he disclosed.
He said the census is being funded by World Bank through a grant, adding that government and international partners have also contributed to the implementation of the census, noting that they need 20,000 tablets for the field enumerators to conduct the census as they are not going to use paper. “We need Le14 billion for the iPads, but we have so far received Le4 billion from the Ministry of Finance,” he revealed.
He said the 2015 census was challenging because there were problems with coding and a few other challenges, noting that this time around the institution will distribute iPads to enumerators for effective and safe gathering of data. He stressed the need to include international experts to be able to do so in a credible and transparent manner. “We in Statistics have the expertise to do the census all alone, but for it to have a national as well as international credibility we have employed the services of international consultants, for that is how it is being done everywhere,” he said.
However, he said President Bio had consented to launch the midterm population and housing census on 4th December 2020, adding that the institution remains committed to making the midterm population and housing census a very inclusive and transparent process so that it can produce credible data for national development.
He further assured that the institution will be updating the public on developments, as they will continue to serve the people. Chairman of Statistics Sierra Leone Council, Moses Williams, said the institution was established in 1964 with the aim of assisting the government in planning, “because if someone wants to plan he must need the tools to do so, and the tools would give that person the information he or she wants”.
He said the institution is important in the country because if a country wants to develop there must be data to determine the status of the country, adding that the data collection would help the country to know the people that are living in that particular country, and for it to be done, they need to go to the field and count people as “that is why a census is conducted”. “If the government wants to plan for the people, they must conduct census to know how many people are there, where they stay and what they are doing; and also if they want to cater for education they must know how many students are going to school. I want everyone to know that this institution is very important in the country,” he said.
Statistics Sierra Leone which is being supervised by a Statistics Council is a semi-autonomous institution established by the Statistics Act 2002 as the central authority for the collection, compilation, analysis and dissemination of accurate, clear, relevant statistical data.
By Sulaiman Karim Sesay