Census, a 10- year debacle

WITH the writs for the general election scheduled to be issued in a matter of weeks, a chorus of foreboding has arisen not only from within parliament itself but from government departments and non-governmental oragnisations questioning whether the exercise would be a viable one.
Given the difficulties in updating the common roll throughout the country, and the ongoing and unresolved political impasse experienced in the corridors of power, one wonders whether anything positive and free of controversy can be accomplished when the country goes to the polls in the middle of this year. Last Thursday, Prime Minister Peter O’Neill unwittingly added more weight to this argument when he frankly admitted that last year’s national census was “a waste of public funds” because it achieved next to nothing tangible or useful and, as such, would be hitherto investigated by the relevant bodies. His main worry was that with the continuing inability of the national census office to provide the electoral office key information on present population figures, this would have a significant, and detrimental, impact on the elections.
“We are not getting the value for the money spent on the exercise,” O’Neill was quoted as saying last week.
“We are spending limited resources and achieving nothing.
“The K100 million is a waste and we have to look for more money for another census exercise. This is public money and we as a responsible government must institute an investigation.”
We concur with that statement, however, the scope of the investigations must extend back to the last census and consider what were the factors that made that a success and why the 2010 census – which was delayed by 12 months – has experienced an excruciatingly slow rate of return.
Funding for this counting exercise was made available. In fact K66 million is said to have been allocated for the operation by the Somare regime. Perhaps the government is complicit to a degree in this matter with its notoriously sluggish pace in releasing funds.
Still, with a 10-year lull between censuses, what does this say about the office tasked with running the national head count?
Not much apparently according to O’Neill. He was quoted as saying the census had indeed “collapsed” and that money earmarked for this had been “wasted”. Wasted on what exactly he did not elaborate but there can be no denying that the office set up to conduct (logistically and statistically), manage and collate census information has for all intents and purposes failed.
O’Neill said there was no justification for the amount of money spent on an incomplete programme. If they cannot provide population figures and other essential data before the elections then that in itself will be seen as a monumental failure and someone should be held accountable. 
If logistics and manpower difficulties were a problem in delivering a competent and effective census then why wasn’t the government alerted to this?
How can a state-funded body whose sole occupation is to administer a programme that is only required once a decade fall short of its mark?
Something is very wrong with our national census office. Their assertion that the timeframe of several months could be palatable if it wasn’t for the fact it has been nearly a year now and no information of any kind has materialised.
Their argument and basis for explaining the lengthy time lag between the official completion of the census and the compiling and listing of information does not hold any water. Their ineptitude is astounding. This is probably true of a lot of other government bodies but in this case the national census office was relied upon to do a job and it has unabashedly failed.
All eyes were on them to perform and they could not and have not made the grade.
We must now ask whether the electoral office can carry on its role of updating the common roll without this key information. We think that any updating of the common rolls on a district by district basis will be done with possibly flawed and outdated information.
In spite of this glaring deficiency, we are resigned to the fact that unless Parliament defers the elections we will see the country head into polling in June with several questions unanswered.
The least of which will be: “Are we sure the common rolls have been updated
will relevant and reliable data?”