‘FAILED’ CENSUS

THE PARLIAMENTARY Opposition has accused the Jamaican Government of poorly managing the 2022 Population and Housing Census, even as Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke denies that the process has been compromised.

Opposition Spokesperson on Finance Julian Robinson disclosed on Thursday that checks by him revealed that fewer than one million people have been counted in the survey, which has so far cost the Government $4 billion.

Two weeks ago, Clarke told the nation that the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN), the state agency responsible for the census, had completed data collection and was now analysing the data.

At the end of the 2011 Census of Population and Housing, 2.6 million Jamaicans were recorded.

Bad from the beginning

But Robinson, who was making his contribution to the 2024/25 Budget Debate in Parliament on Thursday, said the Government has “failed” at this exercise.

He said the census process was managed badly from the beginning, arguing that the legitimate concerns of census workers were ignored.

“I can give you a laundry list of persons who came to me who worked under very difficult circumstances,” said Robinson.

He criticised the STATIN’s management for what he said was the poor treatment of workers, some of whom he said have not been paid.

Clarke, in his opening of the debate on Tuesday, said outstanding information has delayed payment.

“Four billion dollars later, years after the deadline and my information is that we have not counted one million people. We have not counted or enumerated one million people,” Robinson told the Lower House.

Added to that, he said there is no projected deadline for completion.

At Wednesday’s post-Cabinet press briefing Clarke dismissed talks that the census had been compromised and may not be an accurate representation of the population.

He said Jamaica’s challenge is not unique, pointing to other countries within Latin America and the Caribbean which he did not name but said faced similar issues in attempting to conduct censuses.

The census, which is the country’s 15th, got under way in late 2022.

The minister said the challenges being faced are as a result of “global forces” and on the backend of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“People are much more sensitive about things such as privacy and security. With all the stuff, COVID injections, vaccines, the right of government to my information [and] my data. All of that are very present in people’s mind. Not just in Jamaica but around the world and censuses around the world were affected by that,” said Clarke.

In his budget presentation on Tuesday, Clarke acknowledged the under coverage of Jamaicans in the census, indicating that steps have been taken to use new United Nations methodological guidelines to address this.

He said the method used for this census marked a significant departure from traditional methods as, for the first time, data was collected using tablet computers.

He said monitoring the census, recruitment, and human resource management were also intended to be digitally enabled.

However, STATIN experienced resignations and retirements of key personnel at its head office and challenges in recruiting suitable candidates for Information Technology and Human Resource posts.

Clarke said that this was further compounded by the tight labour market in which the census was executed.

He said the two areas had a cascading effect on the operations of the census, including delays in recruitment, training, and payment at the start of data collection.

He said STATIN made adjustments but the negative publicity of the initial challenges, along with the impact of the payment delays had a significant impact on the progress of data collection.

Additionally, Clarke said that there were heightened concerns about privacy, security, and the proliferation of gated communities.

Access to gated communities was a significant problem.

He said respondents in affluent communities were not very cooperative with census takers and supervisors.

Clarke said the pandemic also adversely impacted the planning phase of the census, as several adjustments had to be made in response. This included the implementation of virtual training among others, he said.

He said globally, the 2020 round of censuses has been challenging for several countries.

“This led to a coordinated response from the global statistical community led by the United Nations Statistics Division, which implemented several strategies in response to the issues faced during the 2020 round of censuses,” he said.

Clarke said this includes new methodological guidelines for assessing under coverage, enhanced technical support for small area estimation, and several workshops on assessing data quality.

STATIN participated in several of these initiatives at the global and regional levels, Clarke said and has hosted one technical assistance mission on the census.

He said several steps are being taken to assess the extent of the under coverage, and appropriate action will be taken to address the issues encountered using statistically sound techniques, guided by United Nations Statistics Division standards.

He said this will stand up to scrutiny.

kimone.francis@gleanerjm.com