By Prince J Musa in Kenema.
The Chairman of the Kenema District Council has urged Statistics Sierra Leone to conduct a credible census. Mohamed Sesay made the remarks during the launch of the 2018 Sierra Leone Integrated Household Survey (SLIHS) report in Kenema.
His comment comes ahead of Stats SL’s proposed midterm census that will be conducted next year.
“The people of Kenema District are not happy with Statistics Sierra Leone because of how the 2015 national population census was conducted,” Sesay said.
“Kenema is deprived on budget allocation in areas like road maintenance fund, budget for councils, among others, just as the faulty census statistics did in 2015. The data used by statistics is what government is using to allocate funds to different districts,” he added.
According to Council chairman, areas in his district like Burma, Hegbayma and other interior part of the city were deliberately skipped by enumerators. He said the district officials raised the point with the last government, but they never got the desired response.
Chairman of the Statistics Council of Sierra Leone, Moses Williams, also expressed the need for a credible data whiles urging the cooperation of people with enumerators who are in the field.
“[Statistics] Council wants to make sure that there is accurate and credible information from management of statistics that will lead to development” Williams said.
The 2015 Population and Housing Census was widely criticized by the public following numerous complaints about enumerators filling out the data forms themselves and failing to reach remote communities.
As a solution, Sesay urged Stats SL to hire indigenes from the district to conduct future surveys and census.
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