MONROVIA – The Acting Director General of the Liberia Institute for Statistics and Geo-Information Services (LISGIS) Hon. Wilmot Smith has announced October 24 to November 7 as the new date for the National Housing and populations census in Liberia.
By Francis G. Boayue
Smith in an interview on Thursday on ELBA Radio said following a joint resolution and proclamation by Pres. Weah, all is now set for October 24 to November 7 for the national housing and population census.
In line with the 1986 constitution of Liberia, article 39 states that ‘the legislature shall cause a census to be undertaken after every 10 years, however, 2008, which marks the 4th time for the occurrence of a census in Liberia, and since then Liberia as a country has never held a census.
The long overdue census which was delayed since 2018 due to COVID-19, Wilmot Smith Acting Director General of LISGIS said all is now set for the conduct of the census from October 24 to November 7 beginning with the night of October 23 to deploy over 17,000 enumerators across Liberia to carry-on the enumeration process to know the total amount of Liberians now residing in Liberia.
He said LISGIS received over forty thousand applications from Liberians wanting to work doing the census information seems good and has been scrutinized to select the very best who will collect quality data that will inform decision makings for Liberia.
He said LISGIS has concluded a master training exercise out of 110 and selected 40 professional Liberians to train them on the usage of the manual that will be used for the census to serve as the trainer of trainers (TOT) for those who are going to be selected to work for the upcoming census.
According to him, LISGIS has launched the TOT workshop that is currently ongoing across Liberia and divided Liberia into six regions to train 592 people who will work doing the process.
He said LISGIS is expected to release over 17,000 qualified applicants doing the weekend to work for the conduct of the upcoming National Housing and populations census in Liberia.