The Liberia Institute for Statistic and Geo Information Services (LISGIS) has revealed that US$19 million will be needed to conduct a national census throughout the country.
Liberia’s constitution makes it mandatory to conduct periodic census. “The Legislature shall cause a census of the Republic to be undertaken every ten years,” according to Article 39 of the 1986 constitution.
The Director General of LISGIS, Francis Wreh disclosed that if the government can commit 35 percent of the money required for the census, “we can get the ball rolling and wait on the international community to make available the balance 65 percent.”
Speaking in an exclusive interview www.newspublictrust.com over the weekend, Wreh expressed skepticism about the census taking place this year, because the Legislature did not put any money in the budget for national census.
He added that the international community is waiting the government to jump start the process by allotting funding in the budget for the census.
Wreh explained that in some part of 2016 the National Legislature authorized the executive to undertake a national census and the national census act has been passed.
According to him , LISGIS has embarked on the preparatory work already and all that is needed it is for the national legislature to pass a joint resolution for the reason why the census can not to be conducted in 2018 and scheduled it for next year.
Asked about the level of preparations so far, the LIFIS boss replied: “firstly, we did budget, outline the activities, prepare the roadmap and inform partners of the need to mobilize resources.”
He said as soon as the money is made available in the next fiscal budget.
“We will start the geographical panning between eight to 12 month in order to enumerate the houses, demarcate the country and draw up a map and by December is the national census,” Wreh
As for the number of people to be hired, the LISGIS Director General pointed out that the number of people needed now cannot be made public now because it depends on the mapping but the last time about 7,012 enumerators were hired.
This number does not include supervisors, advisors, inspectors, coordinators and consultants because people are building new towns, quarters and villages.
Lots of benefits come to a country because the national census provides information about threshold, population rate, poverty rate, number of people in agriculture among others, according to the head of LIGOS.