By MONITOR

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Uganda's cabinet last week passed a resolution to conduct the national housing and population census starting on May 10, 2024.

Speaking to journalists in Kampala on Wednesday, the Minister for ICT and National Guidance Dr Chris Baryomunsi said by May next year, the government will have raised the required resources of over Ush130 billion ($34.6 million) to conduct the enumeration exercise across the country.

“The government has marked the night of May 9 as the new census night preceding the actual population enumeration that will commence on May 10,” Dr Baryomunsi said.

Read: Unicef: Uganda population expected to double in 2040

According to him, May 10 shall be a public holiday andthe process will take a period of at least 10 days.

In July, Uganda Bureau of Statistics (Ubos), body in charge of the exercise, postponed the census that was originally scheduled for last month (August) due to delays in the procurement of required logistics, especially tablets needed to facilitate the exercise.

The postponement of the sixth national census since independence was also predetermined by Ubos’ failure to secure Ush134 billion ($35.7 million) from the Finance Ministry that is grappling with challenges of raising the money amidst looming funding cuts from the international community as a result of the recently passed Anti-Homosexuality Law.

Read: Uganda turns to local market for funding after freeze

However, Dr Baryomunsi gave assurance that all is set for the country to carry out the census exercise because the logistical issues which caused the postponement have been sorted out.

“This is going to be the first census where we are using digital systems and we expect the release of results to be much faster compared to the previous manual exercises,” he said.

The last census which took place in 2014 put the country’s population at 36 million and it is currently estimated that the number has since surged to slightly above 45 million people.

The census figures play a critical role in guiding planning, policy formulation, programme implementation as well as monitoring development progress in line with the national goals and objectives of the National Development Plan (NDP III).

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According to Ubos, approximately 120, 000 people are expected to be recruited and deployed across the country to assist in the enumeration exercise.

The national housing and population census is a mandatory requirement to all UN member countries and it is supposed to be conducted after 10 years to ensure proper planning for the people in various respective countries.