A member of the NDC Communication Team, Tetteh ‘T.T’ Caternor has described the 2021 population and housing census as a 10-year ritual that is present of no relevance.
According to him, the exercise is needless as the voter registration and national identification exercise contain the very information and more of what the population census seeks to achieve.
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“Let me ask you this, is it not the same information that was taken for the voters’ ID cards that will be taken for the census? Even the information being taken for the census is not detailed. It only has the names and not the pictures of those being counted. We recently registered for the Ghana card and didn’t they take everyone’s details? Is it not becoming a law that without the Ghana card you cannot even own a phone soon? This means they already have everyone’s information then. We are repeating and just spending money over the same core thing,” he lamented.
The politician who insists he is not discrediting the exercise mentioned that he wonders why the government has decided to re-take information it already has again. “The voter ID has detailed information than one can get from the census so why is the census being conducted? Is this being done because it is the law?” he asked in a discussion on the Happy98.9FM’s Epa Hoa Daben political talk show.
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Describing the population census as hollow, T.T Caternor suggested that if they (Statistical Service) are just coming to count houses, “then the local assemblies are well prepared to do that. If the census is constitutional and must happen, then why must we waste time and resources to undertake the Ghana card registration exercise?”
He noted that the data collected during the census is not used for anything meaningful and doubts its relevance to present-day Ghana.
Kafui Amegatse of the New Patriotic Party opposing the views of T.T Caternor clarified that both the voter ID and Ghana card were for a targeted group of people whilst the census captures information on every single Ghanaian.
He advised his colleague to rather praise Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia for digitising the economy and centralising the data of all Ghanaians.
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Kafui Amegatse argues the housing and population census “is good as the information collected will be used to enhance developmental projects and help influence policies.”
The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) says the 2021 census will begin across the country from Sunday, June 27.
The exercise, which will run till July 11, 2021, is meant to generate data that will be used in decision-making and planning for the development of the country and its citizens.
The census was initially set to begin on March 15, 2020, with the first two weeks expected to be used for listing, a process that comprises the zoning and coding of the number of houses and structures to be covered in the census.
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However, it was rescheduled to June 28, 2020, before being finally postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 2021 Population and Housing Census (PHC) will cost the country GHS 521 million. Out of this amount, the government has raised and disbursed GHS 467 million for the start of the exercise.