By Alex Ofori Agyekum
Amasaman(GAR), Feb 20, GNA – Mr Habib Mohammed the Co-ordinating Director for Ga West Municipal Assembly of the Greater Accra Region was on Tuesday elected as the chairman for an eight member 2020 District Census Implementation Committee (DCIC) for the Ga West Municipal Assembly.
Others were also elected from the Census office, a representative each from the Traditional Council, Ghana Health Service, Ministry of Education, Information Services Department, Statistics and N.C.C.E all of the Municipal Assembly.
In a speech read by Mr Habib Mohammed, who deputized for Mr Clement Nii Lamptey Wilkinson, the Ga West Municipal Chief Executive at Amasaman in the Ga West Municipality of the Greater Accra Region, said the importance of the meeting was to provide the needed platform for an interactive dialogue between users and producers of official statistics.
He said in the context of the National Development Planning, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Agenda 2063 for sustainable development and with the need for data producers to work with all partners from the data ecosystem, there was even more of a need to stimulate this dialogue.
He said the United Nations recommends that every country should undertake a Population Census every ten years.
A Population and Housing Census is an indispensable governance tool, required to ensure that good governance and democracy worked for all, Mr Wilkinson said.
He noted that Ghana had a long history of population censuses, with the last one being held in 2001, with the latest to start on June 28.
He said users and producers of official statistics, were aware of the importance of population and housing census (PHC) in development planning and monitoring of policies and programs.
“Against that background, I strongly believe that this inauguration will provide the opportunity for us in this Municipality to plan and successfully implement the 2020 PHC.
“The outcome of the Census will no doubt improve policy-making in the Municipality”.
He said the PHC data was critical and an indispensable source of statistics in the implementation of decentralization programs, adding “Indeed, the importance of census data in development planning and implementation cannot be over-emphasized”.
He said the members of the DCIC being inaugurated will provide the complement of skills and competencies needed for the successful conduct of the census in this District and assured of good results.
The inauguration of the DCIC marks the beginning of field operations in this Municipal.
He said to improve the timeliness of census results, it was expected that the Assembly, Chiefs and People of this Municipality, will support every effort that the GSS will make in this regard.
“We shall also mobilize our people to make themselves available during the census period.
“I hope that this event will contribute towards building closer working relationships among the stakeholders in our district, towards improving the coordination and mobilization of resources for the 2020 Census,” he said.
Mr Wilkinson said to assure all stakeholders that the Assembly, the Chiefs, People and Opinion Leaders have resolved to work to ensure a successful census, he urge all people in the District to avail themselves for the census, especially during field enumeration.
He reminded the DCICs to be inaugurated today that the success of the census in the Municipal, depended on the extent to which you diligently execute your task in the collaboration with the four-member district technical team. Therefore, the success of the census will be attributed to your commitment to duty, and the seriousness attached to the assignment.
He said that the Assembly had been using previous census data for communities in the allocation of our resources.
Bad census data was an affront to the people of this district and a disservice to our people since resources would be misallocated.
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