Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago charting with UBOS boss Chris Mukiiza looking on the right are Councillors Namazzi.. , John Mary Ssebuufu and Hakim Sawula.
By George Bukenya
Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago has asked Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) boss to make him the census ambassador for the capital city such that he also gets a bite on the census fund.
The Lord Mayor made the request when a team from UBOS had paid a courtesy visit to him at his office with an aim of asking the technical wing and political wings through him for a hand when the mapping for the city starts later this month.
His Worth ship after listening to the deliberation of the UBOS Executive Director, Dr, Chris Mukiiza , he asked for a position on the Census committee saying that its prudent for KCCA political wing to have at least one position on the committee because the city is the face of the country and whatever is done must get a hand of the Authority leadership.
He said as the Authority they don’t have the true figure for the better estimate of population of the city and they keep on guessing when it’s comes to the planning aspect that some say its 3 million others 4 when aggregated those who work and those who resident in the city.
UBOS Executive Director Mukiiza showing the enumerators card to the Lord Mayor
This according to the Lord Mayor, jeopardizes the proper planning for the city in terms of social-economic service to be rendered to the masses.
“ We don’t know the exact estimate of the population of Kampala City because every time new people migrate from other areas to Kampala while there are new born and death every time, this curtails our proper service delivery to our people.’’ His worship revealed.
The Executive Director accepted the Lord Mayor’s request and made him the ambassador of the census exercise whose preliminary activities such as mapping of areas have already kicked off in some parties of the country.
Dr. Mukiiza confirmed that many parts have been mapped including the refugee camps where there was a contentious issue due to the vast area that needed to be covered.
“ We have already mapped many areas but some refugee camps are bigger than even districts for instance Nakivale camp in Isingiro District has about 180,000 people with 72 Parishes, therefore we need to treat it like a district during the enumeration exercise.’’ Dr. Mukiiza revealed.
The Executive Director further said, “ we need to capture everybody when enumerating physically including refugees.’’
On the issue of Terego and Madiakola districts fighting for Rhinal camps he said it has been sorted out with the help of the local leaders of the two respective districts and they agreed two camps to be at Madiakola and 6 at Terego.
The Executive Director also gave the reason why he extended the deadline for receiving of applications on the post of supervisors for one more week saying that there is a need for more people in the country to get engaged in this exercise and even the system wasn’t good enough so some applicants had missed because of the inadequacy in the system.
The deadline was due to reach on Friday 15th, March, 2024.He urged residents of Kampala especially those whose residents whose homes are fences to open their gates and allow UBOS enumerators to enter when the exercise kick starts on May 10, 2024.
Meanwhile the UBOS according to Dr. Mukiiza has already received a consignment of 6,000 tablets, 10,800 are on the way being shipped and are expected on March 23rd, 2024.