The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) is currently undertaking phase II of trial census ahead of the main census in 2020.
The trial census is being done in four districts, namely Aowin in the Western North Region, Ekumfi, Central Region; Krachi, Oti Region and Kpone Katamanso in the Greater Accra Region.
Prof. Samuel K Annim, Government Statistician of the GSS, explained that the trial census was being carried in the districts because they had some peculiarities.
“For instance, the Aowin district is a relatively remote area … and because it is a farming community it is difficult to reach all the residents. The Kpone district gives us the opportunity to deal with Ghanaians and non-Ghanaians who have heavy schedules. So we need to strategise on how to get these people within these communities,” he explained.
The statistician pointed out that about one million United States dollars had been invested in the trial censuses to ensure that the processes to be deployed in the main census were fully functional and robust to different contexts in the country.
He said the focus of the Phase II trial census was to give the GSS a broader prospective ahead of the main census in March 2020.
He added that the trail census gave the service the opportunity to make the effort to finish office work that is associated with the demarcation exercise as they had finished with the field work as far as demarcation was concerned.
He said “for the purpose of Ghanaians the demarcation is important to give us the opportunity to put the country into smaller geographical areas from the data collected.”
Prof Annim also said because the 2020exercise was going to be the country’s first digital census, the GSS currently had in the country different experts from across the globe, specifically people from the United Nations Economic Nations from Africa who are currently working with them to develop what they call a dashboard system to enable them to track progress within which the data was being collected.
“Another intervention helping us is the whole idea of the provision of 70,000 tablets we are going to use for the census. We also have in the country experts from the World Bank.
The Statistician stated that the service was working to ensure that the census would be conducted in the dry season to avoid any disruption.
Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh/103.5FM/Rosemond Boateng Addai
