Stand up and be counted
Editorial
Stabroek News
September 14, 2002
Tomorrow, September 15, 2002 is Census Day. Come Monday some 2,300 newly-trained enumerators, equipped with identification badges, special pencils and questionnaires will begin knocking on doors in nine of Guyana's ten regions as the National Population and Housing Census begins.
Advertisements have been running in the local media for a while now, alerting residents that the enumerators will be visiting and seeking their cooperation. The Bureau of Statistics, which under Chapter 19:09 of the Laws of Guyana is vested with responsibility to execute the census, has also reminded citizens that they should request identification and answer all questions truthfully. The bureau assured that the information garnered would remain confidential and warned that refusal to participate in the census could lead to prosecution.
Previously, censuses were conducted prior to Census Day and enumerators were required to return to all of the homes they had visited after Census Day to determine whether all the persons counted had actually spent the night there or if anyone had since died. However, this year with Census Day as the kick-off point, enumerators need only ask whether persons spent the night of September 15 at that residence. Once all the information needed is gathered then, a second visit would not be required. Enumeration has already been successfully completed in Region Nine and was done early to avoid the rainy season, which in that area includes severe flooding and makes some sections inaccessible.
Countrywide enumeration is projected to last until the end of October, following which the bureau will use state-of-the-art technology, which it has acquired to scan the completed questionnaires. It forecasts that statistical tabulation of all the results should take some six months.
Among the information the census is expected to provide is the size of Guyana's population as at 15 September 2002, including proportions with regard to age structure, race, religion, educational attainment, labour force and other socio-economic characteristics, which can inform population projection. All of this information would have changed significantly since the last population census in May 1991 and the difference in population growth and movement, births and deaths and changes in unemployment would have implications on the demand for social services and infrastructure.
A household questionnaire is also included, which should provide vital facts on land and home ownership as well as types of dwellings that could see the emergence of a solid database on housing and construction.
Censuses are held decennially and Guyana's was due last year, but had been deferred as a result of last year being an election year. The Regional Census Coordinating Committee (RCCC) set up by the CARICOM Secretariat, which is funded by CARICOM member states, is providing support with the planning and coordinating of census activities to all member states. Guyana and Suriname are among the last of the CARICOM states to conduct their decennial censuses. Belize, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Bermuda and the Bahamas completed theirs in 2000 and Jamaica, the member states of the eastern Caribbean and the Turks and Caicos completed theirs in 2001.
The cost of Guyana's census is pegged at $125 million and it is being financed entirely by the government or rather by taxpayers. Complete participation by all persons resident in Guyana must be encouraged in order to ensure that what is generated by this exercise is quality and accurate information.