2020 Population Census to take place in April, May 2021 - Prof. Annim

Government Statistician, Prof. Samuel Kobina Annim, has said the 2020 Round of Population and Housing Census will come off between April and May 2021.

This comes after the census was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic and its associated restrictions on human movement.

Speaking on Accra-based CitiFM’s Breakfast Show on Wednesday, October 21, 2020, Prof. Annim explained the initial deferment meant that the census be conducted at a time where there was less movement of persons in the country to ascertain and collect the right data.

“At the outset of the pandemic in March 2020, we engaged the National Steering Committee to explore the possibility of doing the census in September 2020 as we observed how the coronavirus pandemic rolled out,” he indicated.

“We did not think about doing in at any date after September because the census should be done at a time where the country is relatively stable from the perspective of movement because a very mobile population during the data period will impact on the census count so now we are looking forward to doing the data collection either in the month of April or May 2021,” he explained.

Prof. Annim added that is as a result of the interruption in the schooling system and the general public’s movement at the moment.

“We are informed that schools will return to normalcy in January 2021 and given the different school tracks Ghana is currently running for our schooling system. We are also going to train 75,000 people who are going to use schooling facilities for conducting the census when schools are on break.”

Ghana’s last national housing and population census report was conducted some 10 years ago in 2010 with the final results showing that the total population of the country as at September 26, 2010, was 24,658,823.

The results indicated Ghana's population increased by 30.4 percent over the 2000 population figure of 18,912,079.

For the upcoming 2020 National Housing and Population Census, Ghana’s population is projected to surpass over 30 million.