Why the Mallam O’s Mid Term Census Provisional Results should be rejected
The conduct of the 2021 Mid Term Census outside the normal decinial census is unprecedented in Sierra Leone.
1. The legal instrument that should give legal status to the conduct of the census was presented after the census activities have started so all activities undertaken before the legal instrument including the Presidential Proclamation are illegal
2. The Census Project Document that contained all the activities, methods and procedures as well the budget for the census was not presented to the Advisory Committee for review and approval
3. The Cartographic Mapping exercise was not comprehensive and report not presented to the Advisory Committee
4. Recruitment and training of field staff was limited at district level instead of national ( for District Census Officers) regional( for Field Officers) district ( for supervisor) and chiefdom ( for enumerators)
As a result, field staff were recruited and deployed to areas that are not familiar and cannot speak the language of local residents
This impacted on the coverage of data collection and quality of data collected.
Most field staff did not go to hard to reach areas because they are strangers to the terrains
5.The pilot census which was to be conducted at least 6 months to the actual count was almost skipped and done in a hurry about a month or so to the actual count
The report of the pilot census was not shared with members of the Advisory or Technical committee for review and evaluation based on the report.
6. Time was not enough for the training of field staff in the new CAPI technology that was use to collect
For most staff, that was the first time for them to such CAPI.
7. There was a country wide refusal of citizens to be counted, hence there are data coverage issues, that the data is incomplete. This is coupled with the many tablets that were held and not returned by field staff as a protest for non payment of field allowances
8. The duration of the count was unlimited with various extensions. Normally, the count suppose to last for two weeks from Census Night
A week mopping up is acceptable. The actual count lasted for more than a month wherein people can’t remember those that slept in their households during Census Night
The mopping up, winding down( a new process by Mallam O) lasted for more than a month
9. The World Bank”s withdrawal from the process means the data will not be accepted for international comparison of key socioeconomic indicators.
The data will not be used by any international organisation even for donor assistance in the country .
10. The data is challenged with credibility issues including data management by SSL
