Fredrick Moyo
Some enumerators who are conducting the 2022 population and housing census launched on April 20 have lost their gadgets to theft, with the culprits having already been arrested for the crimes, despite much of the process going on as planned.
Masvingo Provincial Information Officer Rogers Irimayi told TellZim News that the 2022 population and housing census programme is going according to plan, with a few mishaps having been recorded of enumerators losing their data collection tablets.
“The programme is going on as planned and people are corresponding very well to our enumerators and the process is smoothly flowing. Data collection and syncing is according to plan.
“We are however facing a few challenges, but we are sailing through. One of the major challenges we are facing is that people are attacking our enumerators and stealing the Tablets that they are using. For instance in Bikita one was attacked by a knife and the Tablet he was using was stolen though the culprit was arrested.
“Some tablets were stolen while charging. We are also facing network challenges in some parts of the province as the gadgets the enumerators are using need access to the internet so we are transporting people from those areas to where there is internet access,” added Irimayi.
The 2022 population and housing census conducted by Zimbabwe Statistics Agency (ZIMSTATS) will run from April 21 up to 30. The programme being done for the first time ever as they used to only carry out population census in the previous years.
The census is the fourth such exercise to be undertaken by the government of Zimbabwe since Independence and in 2012 the population of Zimbabwe was 12 973 808 and of that population 6 234 931 were males and 6 738 877 were females.
