Govt to hold national census next August
A census enumerator records data from a family in Kampala during the national housing and population census in 2014. PHOTO/FILE
What you need to know:
- A total of Shs330b has been earmarked for the exercise.
Cabinet has approved a plan to carry out a housing and population census scheduled for August next year.
Addressing journalists in Kampala yesterday, the Minister of ICT and National Guidance, Dr Chris Baryomunsi, said the census aims at improving service delivery.
Dr Baryomunsi said the government has already earmarked Shs330b for the exercise.
“We received and approved a document from the Ministry of Finance on national housing and population census that is due to start next year. The census night has been fixed for August 24-25, 2023,” the minister said.
He added: “The process is estimated to cost Shs330 billion, which government will mobilise in the two financial years; FY2022/2023 and 2023/2024. The census will enable the government to establish the number of houses and people and budget accordingly in terms of service delivery to various regions.”
Process
Dr Baryomunsi said the population census will be done digitally and data uploaded directly to the central server in Kampala.
“This year, the Ministry of Finance through Uganda Bureau of Statistics(Ubos) shall be procuring IT devices such as tablets which will be used in the exercise because we are moving away from manual [system], and information shall be captured by the enumerators digitally and transmit the information to the servers,” he said.
The minister added that after the census, the smart gadgets will be used to carry out other studies such as agricultural census and administrative statistics, among others.
The last population census was conducted in 2014.
Efforts to get a comment from UBOS officials about the census preparations and jobs available for the exercise were futile as they never picked up our calls by press time.
However, last year, Monitor reported that UBOS had started mapping the country, developing administrative area maps, and conducting advocacy, among other activities.
It had already completed the mapping of Nakasongola and Butambala districts.
Digital system
Dr Chris Baryomunsi, Minister of ICT and Nationa Guidance: “This year, the Ministry of Finance through UBOS (Uganda Bureau of Statistics) shall be procuring IT devices such as tablets which will be used in the exercise because we are moving away from manual [system] and information shall be captured by the enumerators digitally and transmit the information to the servers,”
