According to Director General Zachary Mwangi, all is set for the paperless exercise that will be undertaken from August 24 to 25/KNBS
NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul 8 – The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) will for the first time conduct an electronic countrywide census next month.
This year’s census will cost Sh18.5 billion.
According to Director General Zachary Mwangi, all is set for the paperless exercise that will be undertaken from August 24 to 25.
While giving an update on the forthcoming national census on Monday, he stated that the computer program to be used has already been designed, developed and tested.
“We’re very confident about our data-capture program,” the KNBS DG stated during the briefing at the Kenyatta International Convention Center in Nairobi.
Moi University and the Jomo Kenya University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) will assemble 164,700 data-capture devices at the cost of Sh15,000 each.
Mwangi said the decision was deliberate because they believed that the country has the capacity to assemble the devices.
He further added that it was also a way to create employment for young people.
“Build Kenya, buy Kenya, because if you go to Moi and JKUAT today, you will see the kind of a job those young people are doing. You will also be impressed. So, that was a very strategic decision that we made because we have the capacity and some of these things have been done before in our universities,” he said.
Mwangi revealed that the census will also capture agricultural activities, a component that was not captured in the 2009 census.
“In the previous census we did not collect information on agriculture but this year we have a whole module on agriculture,” he said.
The institution is set to commence the training of 164,700 supervisors and enumerators who will oversee next month’s countrywide census.
According to Senior Manager, Data Processing, Mutua Kakinyi 2,700 ICT supervisors, 27,000 content supervisors and 135, 000 enumerators have been recruited for the population count.
He stated that the ICT supervisors will train the content supervisors who will in turn train the enumerators for the digital census.
“They have to do a quick count, which is done in their villages meaning counting the number of people in each household. So, if they come to my house there are some questions they will ask me as the head of the house, they proceed to everyone else in that house,” said Kakinyi.
The 2019 national census will be the first one under the constitution (2010).
The last census was conducted in 2009.
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