As part of preparations towards the 2020 Housing and Population Census (HPC), the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) in the Eastern Region has inaugurated an eight member committees for four districts in the Krobo areas of the region.
Mr. Bright Neku the Eastern Region Statistician and team of officials from the respective Assemblies held the exercise for Yilo Krobo, Upper and Lower Manya Krobo; and Asuogyaman districts on Monday 17 and Tuesday 18 February, 2020.
The committee referred to as District Census Implementation Committee (DCIC) is made of coordinating, health and education directors of the respective districts.
The rest were information service department heads, directors of National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), the District Census Officers, District Statistical Officers and in some cases a chief to represent the traditional authorities.
District and Municipal Coordinating Directors are the automatic chairpersons for the committee.
DCIC Members of Asuogyaman, taking Oath
Duties of the Committee (DCIC)
The Committee whose work will end immediately after the census has the mandate to facilitate the acquisition of training venues, secure storage facilities for census materials, resolving of any dispute including boundary disputes that may arise in the course of the census and also carry out any other activity that may enhance the census activities.
The Ghana Statistical Service has set June 15, 2020 as the beginning of the field exercises for the PHC.
Lower Manya DCIC Members
The GSS has postponed the 2020 Population and Housing Census scheduled for March 15, 2020 to June 28, 2020. However, marking of both temporal and permanent structures which will last for two weeks begins June 15, 2020.
In his presentations, Mr. Bright Neku sensitized committee members and all present at the inauguration ceremonies on the need to conduct population and housing census every ten years.
For Ghana’s data systems to remain current, updated and relevant to policy and decision-making on socio-economic, demographic and housing indicators, the regional GSS boss charged committee members to collaborate with all necessary stakeholders to make the program successful.
Increasing of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies from 110 in the year 2000 to 170 and 216 in 2008 and 2016 respectively were as a result of population census and projections on the rate at which the country’s population is growing.
Ghana currently has a projected population of about 31 million, up from the official 2010 census figure of 24.2 million with 275 constituencies and over 240 districts.
For equitable distribution and allocation of scarce national resource, the entire country will undertake the exercise from June this year.
2020 Census Is Paperless
Ghana has a long and rich population census history dating back from the 1891 through 2010.
According to Mr. Bright Neku, this year’s PHC will be technological base, where data of persons and buildings will be recorded using paperless mobile application. This, the GSS believes will help control quality of data.
“Heavily depended on Technology, using Computer Assisted Personal Interview (CAPI), GPS coordinates to pick for all structures and communities,” he said.
He added that, “in-built quality control system for internal consistency validation of the data collected was also put in place to ensure accuracy.”
Lower Manya Krobo MCE,s Remark
On his part, the Municipal Chief Executive for Lower Manya, Hon Simon Kweku Tetteh pledged his maximum support for the committee. He tasked chiefs, churches, civil society organizations and the general public to cooperate with DCIC members and field enumerators before and during the exercise.
Source: ritefmonline.org
