KAMPALA: As the d-day for the 2024 National Population and Housing Census draws near, the public has been urged to give accurate information to the enumerators to enable proper planning by the government for the country.
“This is a countrywide exercise perhaps one of the largest that many will experience that touches every individual that is in Uganda on the census night of 9th May, 2024 to 10th May, 2024. Everybody that is in Uganda on that particular night will be counted,” Amos Lugoloobi, the Minister of State of Finance in charge of Planning and Economic Development said on Wednesday during a press conference held at the headquarters of Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) in Kampala.
He also assured the country that the government through UBOS has finalised all the processes and is ready to conduct the 10-day census beginning Friday 10th May which will be a public holiday to enable people to be at home and be counted.
He also added that Uganda will join a host of other countries on the continent to conduct her first digital census, migrating from the use of bulky paper questionnaires as previously done.
He also informed the public that the enumerators will be using digital tablets known as Computer Assisted Personal Interview (CAPI), which will shorten the time spent on every household being counted and the final results of the census will also be declared faster than the previous ones which took much longer.
Lugoloobi stressed that the 2024 National Population and Housing Census will seek to address five key questions; firstly how many people there are on the night of 9th to 10th May, 2024, where people are found at that particular time, how many people are living and what they own, and where people access services such as health, education, water and basic necessities from.
In Uganda, the de-facto system of counting is used; this is the counting of people where they are found regardless of where they reside. This means that one doesn’t have to be a Ugandan citizen to be counted because the government wants to establish how many people are there in Uganda at the time of the census.
All questions to be asked by the enumerators on the day of the census will be determined by where one spent the census night. The head of the household will be expected to be the main respondent to the questions which will be asked by the enumerators, but in scenarios where they will not be present at the time, they should leave their telephone numbers with a caretaker, so that the enumerator can call to make an appointment with the respondent at a later date not exceeding 19th May, 2024.
Lugoloobi explained that the enumerators will not be hunting for people on the streets but focus will be on households because it is where people live.
An enumerator is expected to mark every household with a unique number per household NPHC24/OM/001/E indicating that the household has been counted.
The Minister reiterated his earlier statement of how the information given by respondents will be kept confidential, and not given to any government entities like Uganda Revenue Authority for tax related matters, adding that the information will be an aggregate and not specific per individual.
“We want to assure the public that your information is totally confidential, as between UBOS and yourselves. You should not be worried because a census is important as it helps the government to plan well for the country in terms of resource allocation for provision of social services to the population,” he added.
He concluded that the success of the census will be dependent on the people of Uganda giving accurate information to the enumerators, and more so the district and city leadership, who will mobilise their residents to embrace the exercise, noting that the exercise is not political at all. He warned people who will be found inciting the public to shun the exercise will be dealt with according to the law.
The Executive Director of UBOS Dr. Chris Ndatira Mukiza in his remarks also assured Ugandans that everything is set for the exercise in terms of training the stakeholders from national level, to sub-county level with the enumerators and supervisors finalising on Wednesday 8th May, 2024 all over the country.
The last national census was carried out in 2014 with a total population of 34,634,650 at the time, but the number is estimated to have shot to over 46 million currently according to Uganda Bureau of Statistics.