NSO prepares for census

ACTING national statistician John Igitoi says he has inherited a lot of challenges and issues that were created over the last 10 years.
Igitoi said he would take stock of his office’s operations to ensure the work of the National Statistics Office (NSO) continues.
“In the last two weeks, I have done a situational analysis in order to understand the current situation and how we can go forward over the next nine months of my acting term,” Igitoi said.
He said in order for him to deliver within nine months he had come up with some critical activities for the four divisions within NSO.
“I have taken stock of all the staff who work under the corporate service division. “I have seen that there was a lot of casuals in that division which prompted me to lay off most of them,” he said.
“With assistance from the Australian government we have developed a terms of reference of diagnosis on our capacity from an outside perspective.
“We expect the report to come out on the capacity diagnosis later this month or in Sept.”
He said there was not enough manpower in the economic statistics division which had seen the recruitment of at least seven casuals to assist with programmes.
Igitoi had also taken stock of the other two divisions within NSO which were population and social statistics, and policy and coordination.
He said preparatory work was underway for the 2020 National Housing and Population Census.
“The 2020 National Census will be launched on Aug 17 in Port Moresby with more than 600 government officials attending,” Igitoi said.
“The census launch will tell the people of PNG that the NSO, stakeholders, Government and development partners are prepared to conduct the national census.
“Two weeks prior to the census launch there will be a workshop for all the provincial census coordinators to be hosted in Port Moresby.”
Igitoi said all the critical preparatory activities were also mapped out leading to the enumeration period to data analysis, dissemination, access and utilisation which included listing, mapping, census questionnaires and awareness.
“Media will be a close partner in doing a lot of public advocacy and awareness in preparation for the 2020 National Census so no one misses out on the census.”
He said the NSO’s main role, as mandated by the Government, was to effectively – and on time – conduct a national population and housing census every decade.
Meanwhile, Minister for National Planning and Monitoring Richard Maru in a May 3 article in The National confirmed July 12, 2020 as the census date.