FINANCE Minister Dr. Ashni Singh has assured Members of Parliament that the data from the 2012 Census will be released by June.
“A final preliminary report will be available by June,” he disclosed last Wednesday in the National Assembly, as he explained that extraction of data from the “comprehensive” questionnaires is currently being done, along with tabulation and analysis.
The National Census has been hailed as important not only to the nation, but to the Caribbean region as well. Member countries of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) are participating in the World Population and Housing Census programme, and data therefrom is being collected by the CARICOM Secretariat to compile statistics in regional databases for regional and international consumption.
The Secretariat would partner with international agencies such as the European Union (EU) and the Inter-American Development Bank, among others, to seek to build capacity in member countries to produce statistics required for policy formulation and to strengthen the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME).
Because of the scale of the census and the demanding and costly nature of the exercise, most countries engage in this activity just once per decade. Guyana has traditionally organised its censuses with the rest of the CARICOM group of countries, and under the coordination of the Statistics Division of the CARICOM Secretariat.
Additionally, Guyana’s census is part of the global round of Population and Housing Censuses for 2010, whereby almost all countries which are Members of the United Nations have conducted and completed their national censuses during the demarcated period for the 2010 Round of Censuses, which commenced in 2005 and concludes in 2014.
The Census is the only national exercise in which every building is counted and every economic activity within each household is enumerated and/or recorded at the same time. The census is, and has always been, much more than a headcount.
The plethora of information that will be collected is also expected to assist policy makers to determine whether Guyana is on track to achieve several of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
In his 2012 budget speech, the Finance Minister said, “This Government has long recognised the critical importance of every country executing a census of its population and housing facilities every ten years, as is the global standard; and in keeping with this cycle, censuses were conducted in 2002 and previously in 1991.”
Another decade has now passed, and the 2010 Round of Global Censuses, which runs until 2014, is now in its final stages. Guyana continues to be a part of the regional approach to census-taking coordinated by the CARICOM Secretariat.
“The size, composition and dispersion of our population are also a matter of national security, and it is for these reasons and more that all countries — and Guyana is no exception – recognise the critical importance of the Census exercise to human and economic development, evidence-based policy making, and ensuring the security of their citizenry. Government now intends for the next national census to be executed in the second half of 2012…” Minister Singh told the House Wednesday.
On signing the Census Order and Regulations, Dr Singh said, “Census 2012 represents our latest efforts to update the vast array of data we compile on national life to inform policy-making by Government and decision-making by other stakeholders, such as the business community. I have no doubt that the 2012 census will prove equally valuable in this regard, and I wish the Bureau of Statistics every success in executing this important national activity.”
In Census 2002, the last census in Guyana, the nation’s resident population was pegged at 751,000.
A total of $327M allocated to the Statistical Bureau in the National Budget was approved by the National Assembly last week, exceeding that bureau’s allocation of $246M in 2013.
(By Vanessa Narine)