Clerics urged to spread awareness about national 2022 census results
ZANZIBAR: THE 2022 Population and Housing Census Commissar for Zanzibar, Ambassador Mohamed Haji Hamza has said that religious leaders have a great role to play in spreading the census information and data to the community, in order to help the government plan well, based on the available data.
He said this during a meeting with religious leaders at the Office of Chief Government Statistician (OCGS)-Zanzibar to educate them about the census results, so that they use it and also pass it to their parishioners in their respective faiths.
“We believe you are important partners in promoting the use of national census information and data because it contains most of the required information including on marriage and divorce issues,” he said.
The census commissar praised the religious leaders for making a great contribution during the whole process of the 2022 census, which led to successful exercise.
“Now it is time for you to know the results and communicate to the people,” he said.
Mr Hamza explained that religious institutions are involved in providing education, so the information about census will help to know the need in different areas based on the number of people present in the respective areas.
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Presenting the results of the census on the issues of marriage, divorce, births and deaths in Zanzibar, one of the census coordinating officers Mr Abdulmajid Jecha, asked the religious leaders to register and encourage their followers to report and register the issues for proper record and the country’s development.
He said that registering and providing information on all issues of marriage, divorce, births and deaths, will help the government to get reliable statistics for different purposes.
“It is unfortunate that there is still a big challenge in getting reliable information and data about marriages, divorces and deaths due to the fact that members of the society still see no importance of registering. Let us continue educating them,” Mr Jecha said.
He said that in 2023, the total number of registered births was 43,943: with Urban-West Region leading by 15.7 per cent, posting 6,905 births, while Unguja South Region is the lowest with 1,582 equals to 3.6 per cent.
In addition, he said the statistics of deaths for the Urban-West Region stood at 2,859 (59 per cent) and the South Unguja Region is 72 (0.5 per cent), which is a small number of registered deaths compared to the estimates.
The Chief Statistician- Zanzibar, Mr Salum Kassim Ali said more education is needed for the community in terms of the importance of registering social issues.
He said the goal of registering the required issues in the society is to get reliable information and statistics prerequisite in planning.
