2020 trial census starts today

The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) will today, Monday, 3 June 2019 conduct a trial census in three selected districts – Dormaa West in the Bono Region; Bunkprugu in the North East Region and Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), specifically Ashiedu Keteke, Ledzokuku, Korley Klottey, Ayawaso West and Okaikoi South municipalities in the Greater Accra Region.

The GSS said it will spend GHS1.97 million for the first phase of the pilot population census which began on 26 May 2019.

The trail census is expected to help the GSS test its instruments and tools for a full-blown population census next year.

Speaking about their preparation for the exercise, Mr Kwadwo Asante Mensah, Director of Administration and Census Coordinator told Class News’ Gemma Appiah in an exclusive interview that the exercise started on 2 June in selected regions and districts in the country.

According to Mr Mensah, the service has the funds to conduct a successful trial census.

“We’re going to have a trial census starting 26 May 2019 and, so, from 25 May, we’ll be doing what is called listing. We are listing the structures of the areas that we’ve selected to do the trial census in. For the trial census, we’ve taken a sample of the areas in Ghana to test our instruments and the tools that we’ll be using during the main census…

“On 2 June, we start enumerating, that is counting the people and structures within our selected area. To add additional information to that, we’ll be conducting the census in Bumkprugu in the North East Region, Dormaa West in the Bono Region, and selected enumeration areas within the Greater Accra Region such as Okaikoi North, Osu Klottey, Ayawaso and others. At Ayawaso, we’ll go to a hall of residence within the University of Ghana to test how we’ll enumerate institutional populations.

“We have all the money for our trial census. When we are done with the trial census, then we tell the government we’re ready for the census by which time it will trigger the release of the rest of the funds that we need to conduct the main census. For the first phase of the trial census, we are thinking of spending about GHS1.9 million and we plan to have three phases of the trial census.”