MP for Assin North, Kennedy Agyapong has called for the immediate dismissal of the government statistician Grace Bediako over poor job done on the Population and Housing census.
\nKennedy Agyapong told Joy News the provisional figures announced by the government statistician are not credible and cannot be relied upon for successful planning and policy implementation.
\nLike some Ghanaians, the MP says he and his family were not enumerated by the census officials during the month long programme.
\n\u201cLots of people are complaining, including myself, that they were not counted.\u201d \u201c\u2026Lots of people were not even aware that they were doing the census, so where from that figure,\u201d he told Joy News\u2019 Elvis Adjetey.
\n\u201cThe whole thing is a complete flop,\u201d he said, adding \u201cif it were an advanced country they would have fired those responsible.”
\nAsked if he is advocating for the officials involved to be fired, the MP was blunt; \u201cOf course, why not! I am not scared to say that. She should be fired! I have nine girls who were not counted”.
\nHe said the government statistician should have complained earlier if the resources given her for the job were not enough.
\nKennedy Agyapong dismissed assertions that he failed to take advantage of the opportunity provided by the Statistical Service – by way of phone calls, for people who were not enumerated the first time to get enumerated.
\nHe argued that if the census was done properly the first time, it would not have been necessary to provide telephone numbers for people who were not counted the first time to get themselves counted.
\nHe said he as an MP was not aware of the existence of such a number, let alone a person who lives in his village who was also not counted.
\nMP for Evalue-Gwira, Catherine Afeku shared similar sentiments, saying she and her family were not enumerated.
\nBut Head of Field Operations at the Statistical Service, David Kombat has rejected assertions that the census was a failure.
\nHe admitted there were a few challenges at the initial stages of the programme but added his outfit quickly resolved those challenges.
\nHe said there are many well qualified demographers in the country who will attest to the credibility of the census figures.
\nPer the provisional figures released, the country\u2019s population had increased by 2.4 per cent from 18,912,079 people 10 years ago to 24,223,597 in 2010.
\nDavid Kombat said there is still opportunity for those who have not been enumerated to be captured by contacting the Service prior to the release of final figures next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MP for Assin North, Kennedy Agyapong has called for the immediate dismissal of the government statistician Grace Bediako over poor job done on the Population and Housing census. Kennedy Agyapong told Joy News the provisional figures announced by the government statistician are not credible and cannot be relied upon for successful planning and policy implementation. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-275537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n