Uganda Bureau of Statistics has commenced a nine-day training for the UBOS Supervisors as the Bureau counts only 33 days to the National Housing and Population Census 2024.
The nine-day training of District Census Officers, Assistant District Census Officers, District IT officers and District Technical officers commenced Thursday, April 4, 2024, at Speke Resort Hotel in Munyonyo.
While launching the training session, UBOS Executive Director and Census Commissioner, Dr Chris Mukiza, said the training program for UBOS Supervisors (DTOs), DCOs, ADCOs, and DITOs is designed to provide them with the necessary skills to train the lower-level District/City staff who will be involved in the upcoming census enumeration in Uganda in 2024.
“I urged the trainees to take advantage of this opportunity to gain knowledge and grasp the various concepts and definitions that will help them in their tasks,” he said.
He added: “The most difficult concept to capture is the census night. Once that concept is finished, then we start on households.”
He asked the representatives of the district commission to ensure supervision of the training activities within their respective areas of jurisdiction.
Dr Mukiza also warned the leaders against turning the census into a money-grabbing exercise saying this time round, it will be very transparent.
“What happened in the past censuses won’t happen again. I heard claims that UBOS will only give you half of the budget and keep the other half. That won’t happen in this census.”
He added: “This will be the most transparent census. That is why the money will not be sent to the districts but will be remitted online (e-cash). Anyone who is thinking about misusing census resources should go home now.”
According to Dr Mukiza, without sufficient data, it is not possible to complete the district budgets.
He said the listing and geo-mapping of households has progressed to 97 percent and urged the districts lagging behind to complete their tasks as soon as possible.
The Census 2024 is a 4-Tier training. These are being trained by selected UBOS staff and representatives from MDAs who underwent a comprehensive five-day Training of Trainers (ToT) exercise, conducted at Statistics House (Tier 1).
The trainees from Munyonyo will thereafter conduct a nine-day training of Sub-county supervisors at the District (Tier 3) followed by the final nine-day training of enumerators and Parish supervisors (Tier 4). Census Enumeration starts May 10, 2024.
Earlier, in the company of James Muwonge, Dr Mukiza held a meeting with the development partners at the Sheraton Kampala Hotel.
The team discussed funding gaps in the Census budget.
