Govt looks for additional funds for 2010 census

Daily Graphic (spread), Mon. Jan. 06/10

Story Rebecca Quaicoe-Duho
THE government is sourcing additional funds from the private sector and developing partners to finance the 2010 Population and Housing Census.
The country needs more than US$49 million to organise the census. Already the government has set aside GH¢37 million towards the implementation of the census programme.
At a press conference in Accra yesterday to throw light on the census programme, the Minister of Finance, Dr Kwabena Duffuor, said the government was hopeful that needed resources would be obtained for the conduct of the census.
He also confirmed that the 2010 national census would not be held in March as anticipated.
Although a firm date has not been settled on yet, the minister said undertaking the census exercise was one of the government’s priority programmes for 2010.
The minister was supported by the Government’s Statistician, Dr Mrs Grace Bediako and a Member of the Census Steering Committee, Mr David Kangah, as well as other officials and directors from the Ministry of Finance and the GSS.
Dr Duffour commended developing partners such as the UNFPA, DFID, UNDP, DANIDA, UNICEF, the Swiss government and the People’s Republic of China for their contribution and pledges, which were so far amounted to US$5 million.
He said the budgetary provisions from the government for the census programme to date had enabled the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) and collaborating institutions and partners to make significant progress in the planning and implementation of the programme.
He said by the end of March 2010, all materials, including the instruments, maps, publicity, among others, would be available, and procedures and organisational structures for the main census would have been developed.
The minister said “there is no doubt that the Population and Housing Census was a unique data source that provides benchmark information for effective planning and good governance at all levels of government”.
Dr Mrs Bediako, who assisted the minister to answer some of the questions from the media, said it had become necessary for the 2010 exercise to be delayed for lessons learnt from the trial census organised late last year to be incorporated into the census.
According to her, several issues such as the weather, holidays, migration and religious pilgrims such as Hajj were being considered before a date was fixed for the census to take place.
She was, however, definite that the census would come off this year.
Last Monday January 4, 2010 the Daily Graphic reported that the National Census anticipated to take place in March, 2010 might delay because the Census Secretariat under the Ghana Statistical Service was still in the process of capturing and collating data from the trial census organised in November, last year.
Enough time is required to elapse after a trial before a national census can be organised after a trial census so that lessons learnt can be built upon.