Ghana’s national census will cost $83million and employ 60,000 enumerators

to undertake the 2020 Population and Housing Census.

In an interview with Accra-based Citi FM, Deputy Government Statistician, David Kombat said they will employ over 60, 000 personnel for the census.

He said the government has assured the needed funds will be made available before the commencement date.

“Our budget for the census is US$ 83 million. That is what we have for the census but the government has given us the go-ahead to start the processes which we have. We have covered almost half of the country with the designation of the various areas. We have also prepared the various instruments and testing them on the field.”

“Because we have a central database, the recruitment is going to be online. It will be advertised for people to apply. We will do the shortlisting with our database. Because we are going to create 60,000 enumeration areas and each enumeration area is going to be handled by one enumerator, it means that we are going to be recruiting more than 60000. So, by March next year, we should be ready,” he added.

The exercise which will take 3 weeks will be held in July 2020. Prior to the main census, a pilot exercise will be conducted starting on May 26, 2019.

The districts chosen for the trial census, are Dormaa West District (Bono Region), Bunkpurugu District (North East Region), and Ashiedu Keteke, Ledzokuku, Osu Klottey, Ayawaso West, Okaikoi sub-metros all in the Greater Accra Region.

The 2020 Population and Housing Census will provide the current population of Ghana, by age, sex, educational level, marital status, literacy, educational attainment, occupation, type of economic activity, and geographic area of residence.

The count will also cover access to social amenities such as water, health care, educational infrastructure, and housing conditions.

A statement from the GSS said, it will for the first time, adopt the use of electronic data collection with other geospatial technologies, which has been recommended by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) for the 2020 round of Population and Housing Censuses.