Gov’t approves GH¢ 477m for census

• Posted on February 13, 2020February 13, 2020
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

The Ministry of Finance has approved a budget of GH¢ 477 million for the 2020 national census to be conducted by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS).
Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Annim, who made the announcement, said the amount will be used for the two-week enumeration of all persons in Ghana. 

The exercise is scheduled to start on Monday, June 29, 2020 and end on Sunday July 12, 2020, instead of the initial schedule of March 2020.

“We are hoping that this period will give us the opportunity to identify all persons in Ghana,” he said.

Prof. Annim said the new census date was informed by the need to deploy geospatial data in the data collection exercise.

He explained that results of the trial census conducted showed that some areas are very fast growing specifically the peri-urban areas in Greater Accra and Ashanti region, “and without building foot prints we will not be in the position to capture the new structures and localities that have emerged so on top of the demarcation that we have done, there is the need to superimpose geospatial data in this exercise.’

He said the technology will give the GSS an estimate of existing structures in each numeration area in Ghana.

Prof. Annim further explained that it was prudent to move the census from March 2020 to June – July 2020 because of the several electoral within the period.

“You will bear with me that in an election year there are quite a number of activities that precede the election activities one of them is the voters registration exercise that is underway and  the other is party specific activities,” he added.

 He said the Service therefore assessed the relative stability across all the 12 months and identified the month of June-July as a relatively stable period.

“For us to do an effective census we need to ensure that there is less mobility of persons in the country and this is important because we don’t want to leave anyone behind,” according to him.

“We are looking forward to the collective engagement of all persons in Ghana for this exercise that we deem is important national programme,” he added.

By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri