THE 2022 Population and Housing Census which kicked off countrywide in August 23 this year has reached 54 per cent, the National Bureau of Statics (NBS) said on Friday.
Equally, NBS Director General Dr Albina Chuwa has called upon census clerks to abide by the terms of their contracts of registering 150 households in urban and 100 in rural areas, warning that those who will not meet the target will not be paid their final package of allowance.
She told journalists in Dodoma that the demographic survey is well on course countrywide.
“The head count is progressing well across the country, currently we have covered 54 per cent of the households, the enumerators are still working under good supervision of the authorities,” she said.
Dr Chuwa also stressed the need for enumerators to adhere to other contractual terms so as to smoothly conclude the exercise.
We have already informed our census clerks to abide by the contractual terms they have agreed with NBS which require them to register 150 households in urban and 100 in rural settings, failure to that means affecting the intended objectives and is contrary to the agreements,” she said.
She added: “Any census clerk, who will have completed covering her assigned area without reaching 150 households in urban and 100 in rural areas, will not be paid his final allowance that will be given to those who will have met the contractual terms.”
She explained that, according to the contracts, enumerators are required to go shift to another area within the assigned ward if the earlier assigned area has only 50 households in order to speed up the process.
An expert from US Census Office Savy Surumpundi commended NBS for the good preparations of the population tally.
Surumpundi said US, through its Agency for International Development, has been supporting Tanzania in census in order to establish its population which is crucial for the East African nation and the world at large.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa directed Regional Commissioners in the country to strengthen communications in order to address arising challenges in the ongoing Population and Housing Census.
Data collection of the country’s population kicked off countrywide on August 23 this year, where as of Thursday 5,060,158 households with a total of 22,004,910 people had been covered.
The Premier also directed the RCs to control census misconducts in social media including abuse of reflective jackets by effectively using their Information and Communication Technology (ICT) teams.
The PM told the RCs in a virtual meeting held on Thursday while at his Magogoni Office in Dar es Salaam that, every region should have statistics collected every day in order to identify the shortfalls and address them for smooth execution of the exercise.
“You are required to have statistics collected everyday by 8pm… this will help to identify areas with challenges and increase manpower to the areas where the counting pace is slow,” the PM said.
Majaliwa also directed regional and district census committees to make close monitoring of the exercise in their respective areas to ensure that the census clerks do their work accordingly.
