Accra, Nov 9, GNA - The Statistical Service Secretariat has began a pilot trial census in six districts as a precursor to the national population census to be undertaken in 2010, Mr David Kombats, a Coordinat= or said on Monday in Accra.

The trials began at 12 midnight on Sunday in which all persons found= at a particular place at the given time were counted.

Saboba and Chereponi in the Northern Region, Sene in the Brong-Ahafo= Region Bia in the Western Region Region, Osu Klottey in the Greater Accra=

Region and Awutu Senya in the Central region were the selected districts for the pilot census, Mr Kombats said.

He said 12 midnight would be the reference time to determine where people were at the time the census began in order to get to know the exac= t number of people both nationals and non-nationals.

He said the trial census which would last for three weeks was expected to prepare the staff on the field, look out for the problems and challenges that were likely to hinder the national census so that they could be addressed, adding that currently recruitment was the main problem. Mr Kombats said the census conducted every 10 years with the last in 2000 took stock of the population and other data since the human beings k= ept moving from location to location, with the delivery of children day in an= d day out, new districts were created, while the number of physically challenged going up. He said in 2000 there were 110 districts but the number increased t= o 170 adding that there was the need to gather credible statistics from them. He said "we need to get the records in order to know whether Ghana is meeting the millennium development goals".

He said the process had a tall list including training, publicity, education of staff, data collection, logistics, distribution and enumeration of the people adding that about 45,000 personnel would be on the field. Mr Kombats said staff had already been trained to do the work and expects the cooperation of the people to make the work smooth.