Kwame Danso (B/A), July 24, GNA - Dr Grace Bediako, government statistician, has said the 2010 population and housing census would, as a national exercise, need the involvement of all Ghanaians for its success.

Inaugurating Sene District Census Implementation Committee (DCIC) at Kwame Danso, the district capital, Dr Bediako said the district committees would be adequately resourced to make the exercise the best yet, not only for Ghana but for ECOWAS and Africa as well. She urged the 11-member district committee to ensure that the funds for the national exercise would be "well worth every Ghana cedi spent". The committee, chaired by the District Co-coordinating Director, Mr. James Bening, would be given initial training to become familiar with questionnaires and other relevant issues for the trial population and housing census scheduled for October.

Other members of the committee are the district statistical officer, district planning officer, district information officer, district director of the National Commission on Civic Education (NCCE) and the district social welfare officer. The rest are the district community development officer, district director of education, district population officer, district agriculture officer and a representative of the traditional council. Dr Bediako said the committee members would be updated on monthly basis. Sene District is among five districts in the country selected for the trial population and housing census. She urged the committee to ensure that only residents, preferably teachers, in the area were recruited for the exercise and asked them "to sit down and map out your requirements". The regional and district offices and committees being set up would be completed by December.

The questionnaire of the 2010 population and housing census will capture eight broad areas including geographic and internal migration characteristics, demographic and social characteristics, educational characteristics and economic characteristics. Other areas are disability, ICT, agriculture, housing characteristics and community facilities.

The regional and district census committees would assist in census publicity and education, facilitating recruitment and training of field personnel, acquisition of office and storage space, provision of transport and other logistics and supervision of census field personnel. Mr. Bening reiterated that population and housing census was very essential for regional and district planning to ensure the judicious use of available resources. 24 July 09