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.
GNA