The National Population Census officially kicked off Friday, May 10, 2024, to establish the number of people in the country. The first day of the exercise reportedly was difficult, according to enumerators.
Despite a nine-days training, machines (tablets) used to capture data became difficult for enumerators to operate them as the software programme allegedly challenged many. Reports show that the exercise in several areas across the country was unsuccessful given the technological challenges.
In Jinja City, enumerators were seen stranded at the city hall by 2 pm, waiting for materials (gadgets) to be used in the field. Only a few cells were reached by the Uganda Bereau of Statistics (UBOS) staff, and a few households were counted.
Enumerators who spoke to Busoga Today, some had not yet identified their areas of enumeration while others were setting off to the field for work.
“We are just here stack. We don’t understand what next and we are approaching two o’clock. Other CAPIs (tablets) are not working. Almost everything is stack though some people are in the field,” said an enumerator who preferred anonymity at Jinja city hall.
Enumerators say, during the training, they have been used to using “Training Mode” with the tablet not being activated to “Census Mode,” which had some new moderities.
Brian Byakika, an enumerator, had a successful day at Mafubira A ‘C’ in Northern Division, Jinja city. He says he started at around 12 pm, and by 5 p.m., Byakika had worked upon eight households.
“I started very late, but I could work on over 20 households. The day was really challenging. At least the tablet was easy to me since I earlier used it from somewhere else,” said Byakika.
Byakika is concerned about the deployment of enumerators, which he says many were sent to areas they are not well conversant with.
“I live in Mafubira-Kayunga, and I was deployed here at Mafubira zone A. I am not well conversant with place, but fortunately, I know how many households I have to work upon. Some of my colleagues were sent to Walukuba (southern division),” he said, adding that he has only 98 households in his area of enumeration.
They (enumerators) claim that they have not received any facilitation since the training started. Byakika has invested in the some good money [he didn’t reveal it] as he facilities himself for transportation and lunch.
According to UBOS, an enumerator is entitled for shs50,000 every day, which Byakika advocates for disbursement of some funds to ease his work.
Mr Alfred Geresom Musamali the Publicity and Advocacy Advisor, National Population and Housing Census 2024 apologised for for the delays and any encoviences caused amidst the exercise, attributing the issues to technical problems in the Computer Aided Personal Interview (CAPI) machines they are using for the first time to collect the data.
“Some enumerators are also facing logging in challenges because the technology in new. Besides, there are some machines that somehow slipped through the process without the relevant software being properly installed. The consolation, though, is that we are working round the clock to overcome all these challenges,” he said.
“We, in addition, have two weekend days ahead during which many of you may still remain at home to be counted so it is not yet too late. But in case that is still not possible, kindly empower any responsible and knowledgeable person remaining at home, such as the secondary school student on holiday, to provide us with the information,” he added.
