Ghana to witness first ever digital census next year

Professor Samuel Kobina Annim, the Government Statistician Thursday said Ghana will witness its first ever digital Census in the 2020 Population and Housing Census.

He said the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) would deploy 70,000 tablets and leverage on other modern digital technologies to collect data to ensure accurate and reliable database.

Prof. Annim said this at the inaugural meeting of the National Census Publicity, Education and Advocacy Committee (NEPEAC) in Accra.

The 20-member committee is chaired by the Information Minister, Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, and charged to ensure that every individual in Ghana is counted in the 2020 Population and Housing Census.

Prof. Annim said the Service will also develop a mobile App to educate the citizenry and enable every Ghanaian to track the activities of the GSS and inform it about any concerns they have on the Census.

He urged the Census Publicity Committee to harness the full potential of the App in the education drive to ensure the success of the exercise.

Another area the GSS would deploy the use of technology, the Government Statistician said, was the Geospatial Data, which would aid in integrating all the data collected from other national exercises such as the National Identification System, National Housing Project and National Digital Property and Addressing System.

This, he said, would enable private businesses and government institutions to make good use of facilities in a particular area to enhance service delivery.

Prof. Annim said after successful Trial Census in May this year, the Service would commence the second Trial Census on November 18, in the Kpone Katamanso Municipality of the Greater Accra Region, Aowin Municipality in the Western North Region, Ekumfi District in the Central Region and Krachi-Nchumuru in the Oti Region.

The Trial Census, he explained, would sharpen the preparation of the GSS and enable it to identify any foreseeable challenges ahead of the National Census next year.

Prof. Annim said on Friday, October 25, the GSS would inaugurate Regional and District Census Implementation Committees for the four districts where the Trial Census would take place.

He said the field officers who would undertake the Trial Census would undergo training and equipped with the requisite skills for the exercise.

He said a four-member technical team would be inaugurated at the regional and district levels to supervise the Census.

The technical team, he said, would comprise a Data Quality Monitor, an ICT Officer, District Census Officer and Zonal Field Supervisor to coordinate data collection exercises and ensure that the data collected was accurate and reliable.

The Government Statistician said the President accented to the Statistical Service Act, (Act 1003) a month ago, with section 33 of the Act stating that, Ghana will have a national census in every 10 years.

He expressed the readiness of the Service to conduct a successful exercise, saying that, it had received the requisite logistical and financial resources from the Government for the Census.

“The Ghana Statistical Service has three cardinal points, that is, to make sure that every Ghanaian is counted, being counted once and being counted at the right place,” Prof. Annim emphasised.

The first Census conducted in the then Gold Coast was in 1891.

The last time the nation conducted a National Census was in 2010, which recorded a population of 24.2 million.

The result implied that Ghana’s population increased by 30.4 per cent over the 2000 population figure of 18.9 million.