Ugandan Govt to spend Shs132b on Census Tablets

The executive director of Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), Dr Chris Mukiza said they expect to deploy 110,000 enumerators, each with a tablet.

This would put the unit cost at Shs1.2 million.

The 10-day exercise that starts on August 25 is expected to cost Shs373 billion, with government providing Shs339 billion.

“We expect the remaining Shs34 billion to be mobilised through United Nations. Government is contributing 90 percent, it should be applauded. The other censuses, more than 70 percent was from partners,” Dr Mukiza said.

He was speaking yesterday at a ceremony where the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) handed over 20 computers for large dataset processing and geographical information system mapping worth Shs157 million.

Ms Hellen Namirembe Nviiri, the director for population and social statistics at UBOS, said the tablets will be be used for other government undertakings after the census.

The money from government is expected to cover, in addition to tablets, the recruitment and training of enumerators, setting up the data centre and storage servers, conducting the pilot census next month, procurement of other field materials such as aprons.

Uganda announced it will be going digital for its sixth post-colonial census. Dr Mukiza says this will be key in upping the quality and integrity of the data.

UNFPA country representative, Dr Mary Atieno, underscored the importance of quality data in guiding policy decisions, service delivery and achieving commitments like attaining the middle income status.

“Uganda has the aspirations of becoming a middle income country, so it is important to establish its current population size, its distribution and composition to address any existing inequalities especially identifying the 39 percent population in the substance economy,” she said.

As opposed to previous censuses where enumerators collected data on paper, the enumerators will use tablets to enter the data, which will be monitored by the team at the data centre.

Mr Mukiza said the process will eliminate the data entrant clerks, but will adopt more IT personnel and validators

He also said data will be transmitted in real time.

The provisional results are expected in two months, while the final report will be released in June 2024.

Meanwhile, the next census is expected in 2032.