Census extended to Wednesday

The Population and Housing Census exercise has again been extended for three days by the census secretariat.

The move is to ensure that those left to be counted in isolated places, particularly within the Greater Accra Region, are covered.

Mr. David Kombat, Head of Education and Publicity of the secretariat, told the Times, about 90 per cent of the total population has so far been covered.

"We have covered enough grounds except few isolated placed in Accra. This means that we have accomplished our mission," he said.

He said committed enumerators who are unemployed would be engaged by the secretariat to assist in clearing up the exercise by the close of the Wednesday target. Teachers involved in the exercise had been requested to go back to classroom.

Mr. Kombat said reports from the other regions showed that the Secretariat was winding up the exercise, adding that the enumerators worked hard to count every household by the close of Sunday.

He said the isolated cases in Accra would be tackled hopefully by Wednesday.

For instance, he mentioned Abokobi and Haatso, in the Ga East district where some households had not been covered.

Besides, he said, some structures at Weija had not been numbered for the residents to be counted.

Mr. Kombat said further that few structures on the Spintex road had not been covered by the enumerators.

He mentioned boundary disputed between the Greater Accra and Eastern Region, particularly at Nsawam, which was undermining the exercise.

He said another problematic area was Kasoa where the secretariat was finding amicable solution to the dispute between the Greater Accra and Central Regions.

Mr Kombat said a task force was linking up with area supervisors to give the necessary assistance to enumerators encountering such difficulties.

The census which began on the night of September 26 was scheduled to end on Sunday, October 10, but had to be extended for a week after the process was hindered by problems of inadequate materials and other logistics.