Lack of planning by our planners

Power is like a truth pill that exposes the real character of a person. Former US president, Abraham Lincoln, once said: “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

Experience has taught me that any plan is as good as the implementation framework built into and around it, more especially at the micro level. The government (which I regularly criticize – with good intentions, mark you) is often guilty of drawing up magnificent plans that lack a well-thought-out plan and therefore fall short on targets and impact. The ongoing population census (if it is going on) is a good illustration of that.

The government through its Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), which is supervised by a whole Minister of State for Planning, must have been planning for this census for years. After all, they know it is held every 10 years. So we were told the exercise would commence on May 10 and go on for nine days. 

The first mistake, in my view, was to declare the first day a public holiday. What was that for if on the rest of the census days, we would go about our business regardless of whether the enumerators would call while we were at work?

The second issue was to declare a specific census night to a population whose appreciation of the intricacies of demographic and statistical intricacies is rudimentary. 

According to this “census night” thing, a household is supposed only to report people who “spent” census night at a particular location. This, according to UBOS, is to capture a snapshot of the country’s population on that night. I laughed when I saw attempts to enumerate homeless people at one location when they could easily be re-counted a few hours later in some other part of the city! Anyway, who really cares whether we were a particular number on that night? The vagaries of biology dictate that by the time UBOS’ census results are released the number of people in Uganda will have changed.

Besides, the census cannot cover everyone. In fact, during the last census, I waited in my Buziga (a Kampala city suburb) home for the enumerators who never turned up and I was never counted.

Going back to planning, the final issue was for UBOS to simply tell us the “macro” plan and timing, i.e. nine days from day one, without at some point outlining micro-level implementation details. What do I mean? Instead of telling Ugandans that the census is for nine days, the area supervisors should have had their own area-specific implementation plans, sub-plans, and contingency plans. 

I reside in a fairly organised neighbourhood complete with a WhatsApp group for the residents. With the tablets UBOS has been telling us about, it would have been very easy to communicate to residents in different sub-localities the approximate time frame when to expect the enumerators. Even in localities where no similar facility exists, the LC1 network (the only group of politicians I find to be of some use) would have been engaged at a minimal cost to communicate micro-level plans for the census so that residents would know when exactly to expect to be enumerated.

As it is now (five days in the Macro plan) only one person I have interacted with has told me that his family has been engaged by an enumerator. Already the census has been extended in the Kampala Metropolitan Area for a day. I fear, however, that not even another month’s extension will improve matters markedly until the planners come down to earth from their high horse.
            
HGK Nyakoojo, Buziga, Kampala.