Census hiccup

Shortage of interview manuals and pads delay counting

 

By ALISON ANIS

 

COUNTING for the national population and housing census has faced hiccups since Monday, most notably the shortage of census pads for data entry, according to an official, The National reports.

Some officers yesterday claimed they were still to be paid their K40 daily allowances.

Kila Geberi, the census coordinator for the Southeast region which included Central, Northern, Milne Bay and NCD, said most census teams around the country had stopped working because there was a shortage of 5,000 census pads.

They also needed another 1,000 manuals to guide interviewers.

“There is a shortfall of census pads throughout the country and we also need more interviewers’ guides or manual,’’ Geberi said. “We may have underestimated the workload and distances in earlier assessments of workload formation.”

Geberi said: “The number of people in the household has grown over the 10-year period and, because there are many small villages scattered across remote areas, most of our field officers are now facing that (problem) during their operations.”

He said the workload was spread between 40 and 50 families after considering the distance and the time needed by each provincial census coordinators.

“We are advised by Moore Printing that 5,000 copies of the census pad would be ready for delivery at the end of today (yesterday) or tomorrow (today),” Geberi said.

The census pad contains 65 census questionnaire forms and a single form can cater for seven people.

He said counting in some parts of Milne Bay, Northern and Central began on Monday while counting in other parts were held up because of the shortage of census pads.

Geberi said some interviewers and supervisors were still conducting their training this week.

“Counting in NCD started on Monday and is progressing well despite some minor setbacks.

“In some parts of Central, Northern and Milne Bay, counting may be delayed as some officers are doing their training.

“That means counting will begin on Saturday and throughout next week,” Geberi said.

He said he had been advised that Safia and Keva LLGs in remote Northern had not started counting because the field officers were still undergoing training.

He said there were some delays with funding for the training.

Meanwhile, some NCD field officers were still complaining yesterday about the non-payment of their K40 field allowances.

As of 5pm yesterday, there was no confirmation from the census coordinators in NCD that the officers had received their allowances.

The funds were still with the Department of Finance and Treasury.