Govt issues K100mil towards census, K50mil chopped

THE Government has allocated K100 million towards the 2020 National Census, a cut of K50 million of the originally budgeted amount for this year, says acting National Statistical chief officer John Igitoi.
He said this was done due to financial constraints that the country was facing now so they had to cut out some activities at the preparatory stage.
Igitoi said all census activities were time-bound with the budgeted money and its spending needed to conform with the timing and the implementation of each activity as per the work plan and the budget.
“Unlike any government activities which are carried out systematically in routine set procedures, this activity (census) requires consistent and readily available funds to meet it requirements within a shorter timeframe,” he said. Igito said that was why conformity to the standards, timeframe, deadlines and the funds available had to be utilised well in achieving the best results possible.
He said NSO had spent over K20 million so far on census management and coordination aspects including the operations at the headquarters, provinces operations and coordination and the technical assistance.
“In the preparatory stage, we expect to spend about K89 million for GIS and mapping, field operations, research and development, census publicity and security,” he said.
Igitoi said another critical phase was the census enumeration which the NEC had endorsed July 12 July as the date for the start of the 2020 national census.
Igito said all census operations and activities would be conducted at the ward level that was why there had to be proper coordination structure in place with the national coordinator with the 23 provincial coordinators and five regional coordinators.