Govt tightens requirements for 2023 census enumerators

The Uganda National Bureau of Statistics (Ubos) has set stringent requirements for those seeking to be enrolled as enumerators for the 2023 Population and National Housing Census.

According to the Ubos executive director, Dr Chris Mukiza, priority will be given to trusted, mature people with high repute who will be recruited from their respective areas of residence or operation.

“One of the issues that arose during our stakeholders’ engagements, especially with the Cabinet, was that when we send very young people who are not of responsibility, households tend to withdraw information. We are now going to use people from their respective areas who are a bit mature and mostly, we want to target teachers and people of high repute,” he told journalists during an e-conference in Kampala last week.

Dr Mukiza also said the applicants for the position of enumerator must be computer literate and able to use a tablet to compile data, must have a national Identity Card, and a mobile phone registered for mobile money in their names.

He said Ubos will be depositing the enumerators’ allowances on their mobile money accounts to avoid costs of middlemen.

He said since this census will be digitalised, job applications will also be done online.  The number of enumerators needed will be established after census mapping is complete.

“We have 11,000 parishes in the country and on average, each parish has between 50 and 70 villages, and each village may require five to nine people; however, we shall know the exact number of enumerators needed after mapping has been concluded,”  Dr Mukiza said.

The  census mapping exercise, which started last year and is expected to end in February 2023, aims to update boundaries, facilities, features and households for purposes of establishing enumeration areas to guide the conduct of the population census.

Other surveys being undertaken in preparation for the main census include; the Uganda Demographic and

Health Survey that seeks to establish health related indicators such as mortality rates, life expectancy, and fertility rate among others.

The team is also undertaking an enterprise survey to generate economic data such as the country’s Gross Domestic Product, employment levels, national income and earnings.

Dr Mukiza said Ubos needs about Shs146.9 billion to finance preparation activities for the census and about 75 percent of that money will be used to procure computers, tablets and upgrading the server system. 
He said so far, the Ministry of Finance has released Shs4 billion for the ongoing mapping exercise but an additional Shs7 billion is needed to complete mapping the whole country.

According to the minister for ICT and National Guidance, Dr Chris Baryomunsi, the census is slated for

August 24 to 25, 2023, and the total budget for the whole exercise stands at Shs330 billion.

Sixth census 
This will be the sixth census conducted since the country attained independence and it will also cover households in refugee settlements. The most recent census was conducted in 2014 and it put Uganda’s population at 34.6 million people.