By Politico staff writer
Statistics Sierra Leone has completed the training of 68 enumerators in the western area ahead of the 2021 Mid-Term housing and Population census.
Principal Statistician in the Western Area, Ibrahim Sannoh said the up-coming Mid-term Population and Housing Census (MTPHS) has nothing to do with politics and is only intended to produce data for national consumption.
Sannoh said the idea of the census was borne out of the need to rectify anomalies in the previous national census exercise, among other reasons. “We are not involved in any political demarcation. What we do is provide data for use by those who need it.” He stressed that the census is not meant to reduce any part of the population, as some people had also alleged. “It will only give what is there.”
He added that accurate and current data is crucial for policy formulation and decision-making for national development and that while resource-constrained countries like Sierra Leone rely on census for population data, developed countries have reliable systems of sourcing data on their population at any given time. “People think that census should be done only after 10 years, but that’s not correct. If you have the resources it can be done more often. Advanced countries have other ways of getting data, so they do it all the time. But we depend on a national census,” he said.
Critics, including leading civil society organizations like the National Elections Watch (NEW), have argued that the census was irrelevant and that the funds the government is providing for it should be diverted into more urgent matters.
But Stats SL has catalogued numerous reasons why the exercise is relevant. Among these is that this is the first time Sierra Leone is conducting a census exclusively with electronic gadgets and it is a much needed rehearsal for the next primary census slated for 2025.
The MTPHC 2021 is also crucial in that data from it is needed to assess progress by Sierra Leone in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), for which old data cannot be used, according to Stats SL officials.
“The whole thing about cartographic work is field work. They go from village to village, street to street,” explained Bockari John Massaquoi, District Census Coordinator for the Western Area.
In all Stats SL trained 1,500 people nationwide, based on interviews conducted in between September and October 2020.
1, 200 people are needed in the field but according to Ibrahim Sannoh 300 others will be placed on standby in case there was need to replace any field worker.
The Mid-term Housing and Population Census takes place in April. It marks the first time Sierra Leone is conducting a mid-term census.
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