KAMPALA: Makindye Division Mayor, Ali Kasirye Nganda-Mulyanyama has cautioned local council leaders against taking advantage of the upcoming census to create political divides. This he said at a workshop organized by Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) that was held at the East African Labor College in Namuwongo aimed at sensitizing leaders in Makindye division about the listing and mapping exercise for the upcoming CENSUS.
“This is a population CENSUS to ensure national planning for the social-economic stand of the country, you must therefore, not fabricate lists of residents or ferry people from other regions under the misconception that they are strategically enlisting voters for their 2026 campaigns.” Mulyanyama noted.
Alfred Garesom Musamali, the 2024 Publicity and Advocacy Advisor noted that unlike previous census exercises, the 2024 CENSUS is highly digitized and will use GPS in order to mark the exact locations of the people, their residents and their delineated boundaries.
Alfred Garesom Musamali, Publicity and Advocacy Advisor Of The 2024 Housing & Population Census/ Courtesy Photo.
Musamali noted that the CENSUS ‘picture’ will be captured on the Thursday and Friday 9th and 10th May and will be for households. Which households he described as people who have a long term arrangement to cook and eat together even if they do not live under the same roof.
“When we go to the village, we list the heads of those households for referencefor other activities, we also take geolocation points using the GPS in order to locate that household on the map of the village. Onn the map we also locate landmarks, physical structures such as hills, rivers, valleys etc and also the social economic structures, the schools, hospitals, the markets, churches, mosques and others. Said Musamali.
“Eventually, when we are disseminating statistics information about a village, we should be able to plot the distribution of population against those physical infrastructures and then also against other landmarks.” He added.
In Makindye Division, the CENSUS team aimed at getting understanding with Local Council Ones Chairpersons or their representatives for the person. He added that they will also bring on board the Division Town Clerks, Division Mayor, Division Planner, the RDC, the PISO, the DISO to help the team in engaging households.
The CENSUS Team is kicking starting the mapping process on Tuesday, 2nd, April, 2024 and its likely to take them a week. Makindye has over 240 villages , qall targeted in this process.
Mark Baigana, the Newly Appointed RCC Makindye Division.
On the same occasion, The newly appointed Resident City Commissioner for Makindye Division- Mark Baigana has urged government to largely rely on the support of Local Council leaders to ensure smooth operations and accurate results in the population CENSUS due to commence in May this year.
The RCC noted that Local Council Leaders, especially LCI and LCII are the foot soldiers of all government programs yet their remuneration is too low to motivate them to perform their duties effectively. Government having raised the LCI monthly remuneration, the RCC urged government to give them more incentives.