October 6, 2024
The long overdue Census
Introduction
The Census is not only a core function of the Statistics Act of Guyana but is the very first function listed under the Act which was passed one year before the progression from a colony to a country. Prior to the Act, responsibility for statistics largely rested with the ministries and departments of government, outside of any central coordination. The Act brought a more centralised structure into being, its timing providing the government with the power to collect, analyse and disseminate information to foster informed planning and decision-making both by the government and the people. Indeed, as the Minister responsible for Finance stated in his 2022 Budget Speech, Census 2022 would “establish baseline data sets that will guide policies at all levels”.
It is very unfortunate however that policies by the current administration are formulated when key political figures visit regions in the country, speak at ceremonial functions, or at press conferences, without any reference to data compiled by the Bureau of Statistics. Because the Bureau has largely operated under the thumb of the Ministry of Finance, it has operated outside of the public purview, a necessary ingredient for enhancement in efficiency and utility. Indeed, the public, unfairly, associates the Bureau entirely with the ten-yearly census which is has never performed with distinction, almost always late. Indeed, increasingly so as the following table shows:
- The 1970 census; Report published in 1972.
- The 1980 census: Report published in 1982.
- The 1991 census: Report published in 1994.
- The 2002 census: Report published in 2005.
- The 2012 census: Report published in 2016
The census which should usually coincide with the commencement of each decade was announced in September 2022 – two years after the PPP/C resumed the reins of power and two years and nine months after the preferred international census date. Of course, even this was turned into political theatre with the Bureau announcing that “the first persons to be counted were the households of the President, Prime Minister, and the Leader of the Opposition”, going so far as to naming the offspring of the President and the Prime Minister. It would be great if such obsequiousness and tastelessness were matched with better quality and range of output from the Bureau.
Vague timelines
In March 2023, the Chief Statistician was quoted in the press as stating that preliminary results of the census had revealed significant shifts in the population”, without offering a preliminary report, as would be the norm. Adding another twist to the timeline, the Minister of Finance told the National Assembly in December 2023, that the report was “slated to be made available to the government by the second quarter of 2024” but that the bureau would require a further four to six months from that time for preparation and publication of all reports. This begs the question whether the preliminary report is for the eyes of the Government only and why the public is not permitted access to that report.
The Bureau and the Government must understand that this census is historic and critical since it will be the first after the discovery of oil in Guyana, the most game changing economic event in this country’s history. That planning and major expenditure are taking place in this census vacuum is not only unfortunate but unacceptable. Since that time, the country is witnessing an explosion in largescale and transformative projects, in major roads and other infrastructure, in building a new city from the ground up, in locating about a dozen new hospitals, in more than a single gas-powered plant, and in the construction of schools and court houses etc. It means that Guyana will have expended as much as trillions of dollars without a proper population, household and demographic census, labour availability and unemployment conditions, in place.
Anyone visiting the Bureau’s website will have noted that there is information but more in the form of raw data, very little of it sufficiently organised and mostly with no analysis, as its Act requires. The Bureau needs to organise focus groups to meet with its technical team(s) to consider ways of making the trove of information it collects more relevant and useful.