The on-going national housing and population census is the 11th official census with Uganda bureau of statistics (Ubos) taking a lead. It will cost 333b and last for 10 days. The first census was carried out by the British colonial government in 1911 where the population was 2.5m. Subsequent censuses were conducted in 1921, 1931, 1948, 1958, 1969, 1980, 1991, 2002 and 2014. The last census established that the population was 36.6m.
For any population and housing census to succeed, the populace must embrace the cause, actively participate by providing accurate information to the enumerators and have positive expectation in the outcome. Planning calls of accurate data, mainly focused on socio-economic imperatives. This data is expected to bring out the economic standing of the population, living standards, housing, health and the source of livelihood among others. These paint a true picture of the population and the mitigating factors needed to turn around the dire situation.
Whereas the intentions of government are clear, a certain percentage of the population may not fully appreciate the exercise, by being skeptical and confounding the process with social and religious beliefs. People desire development, but they don’t realize that for effective planning, it is key to know the numbers to plan for and the details of socio-economic state of individual households. This calls for an elaborate questionnaire to bring out the salient issues in the populace. How the questionnaire is structured determines the coherence of respondents in providing accurate information. However, this can be jeopardized if the population has biases, beliefs and customs that negatively impact responses to the questionnaire.
In the on-going census, media has carried stories of people expressing negative sentiments. Some religious fanatics are against being counted, based on a belief in the doctrine of having been counted in heaven and there is no need to be counted again. They cite biblical texts to justify their stance. These religious beliefs distort the true picture of census. The other group of people are those who relate their bad economic status to the failure of government to provide solutions to their plight. To them being counted is a waste of time. They don’t draw a nexus between population numbers and development planning. They are bitter about their plight.
Another group is one that believes in the notion that when government knows your economic status, it’s looking for a way of taxing you. Census is looked at as being intrusive, intended to expose people to the taxman. This line of thinking doesn’t discriminate between the educated and illiterate are both apprehensive of this voluntary exposure of their economic status.
There are politicians who feel a successful census would give political mileage to the government and prefer painting a negative picture of the process that would dent the image of the government. Some politicians have been heard on media trying to capitalize on the hitches during census to trash the whole exercise. Of course they don’t do it out of ignorance, but a well thought out scheme to settle political scores. These sentiments impact negatively the respondents who take their views religiously. It should be noted that some of these people are seen as role models to their supporters and voters. When the exercise eventually fails, they are quick to point out the flaws to the public.
There is the laissez faire group who don’t care about what goes on around them. They are uninterested, aloof and unengaging. They may not even know what goes on around them. They are in wonderland.
All these people conspire either individually or collectively to negatively impact the outcome of the census. The government has to do a lot of mobilization and sensitization. The technical hitches can frustrate the enumerators. When gadgets fail to function, facilitation isn’t streamlined, supervision isn’t strict, chances are high that little will be achieved. It should be pointed out moving from home to home is such a daunting task that drains energies leading to fatigue. Without close supervision, enumerators can decided to be laid back, covering only what the body strength can afford and retire. They will be caught by time, leaving a large number of the population out.
A proper analysis of both realities and perceptions should be carried out for any census to succeed. The population is diverse and their level of appreciation of issues also varies. If it means segmenting different messages for different groups to achieve results, then that should be done.
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