Kenya’s long awaited census slated for this august will be digitized to improve on the quality and accuracy of data collected. While warning politicians not to politicize the exercise, Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich said utterances by politicians are likely to compromise the two-day exercise that’s expected to take place on August 24th and 25th, 2019. Instead, the cabinet secretary urged politicians to raise their concerns after its completed.
Digitization of the 2019 Kenya’s population census follows recommendations by the United Nations and comes with a set of inbuilt checks, correction of inconsistent responses and cross-validation with other records according to the Cabinet Secretary. The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics is mandated to carry out the exercise that provides statistical information on the size, distribution, and characteristics of Kenya’s population.
Quality and timely results as a results of digitization
The process will involve additional key indicators such as fertility, mortality, labor, education as well as people living with disabilities. “This information will enable the government to plan its spending based on socio-economic and demographic status,” said CS Rotich.
At the same time, the cabinet secretary downplayed concerns raised by some politicians who claimed the census exercise to be more expensive compared to amount spent by other countries in the region. This exercise is expected to cost tax payer’s a whooping Ksh18.5 billion, which Rotich says meets international standards.
This year’s census will also focus on Agriculture and household incomes and by digitizing the process, Kenyans are expected to get timely release of Census results. The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) will spend Ksh 10 billion on buying bio metric equipment for data collection while Ksh 8 billion will be allocated on hiring and training staff. Additionally, a total of 165,000 tablets that will be used in the exercise, will be procured from the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) and Moi University.
Kenyans should ignore fake enumerator jobs for 2019 census
Kenyans have also been cautioned against fake job adverts for enumerators and are advised to wait for the vacancies to be advertised sometime in June at sub-county level.