Dr. Cris Mukiza Uganda Bureau of Statistics Executive Director
By George Bukenya
The Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) boss Dr. Chris Mukiza has vowed not to resign after a call by a section of opposition politicians and some other ordinary Ugandans who made comments on the results of the 2024 Housing and Population Census.
However, he admitted the errors made during the compilation of Census indices where some figures of two regions concerning tribe and religion where erroneous swapped up and this caused contention and outright criticism by a section of people calling for Mukiza’s resignation.
“ I admit we made errors where figures of Mbale and Kabale, and those of Lango and Acholi regions respectively where interchanged. Such errors can’t make results of the National Population and Housing Census be nullified as some people call for.’’ Dr. Mukiiza stated.
“ Don’t expect another census, until 2034, there’s more than total count in the census exercise and figures reveal other phenomenon,’’ he said.
The Executive Director also said some people were making falses accusations to UBOS that they weren’t counted for instance the Kira Municipality legislator Ssemujju Ibrahim but who showed recoreded evidence of the picture of his family.
He further said, “ I don’t see any wrong I have committed that warrant my resignation, it doesn’t mean when you make a small mistake you leave office of family, un counting as alleged by some people happen everywhere. There’s no single country that count everybody in the census exercise. Take an example of USA’s 2020 Census were coverage was 70%,’’ he reasoned.
While addressing reporters in a special press conference at Serena Hotel in Kampala today, Mukiiza said that the figure for Kabale was supposed to be for Mbale and that of Acholi was for Lango and this mix-up can be fixed right after all these area still provisional results and the final results will be released in December this year with explanation.
“ The fundamental principles of census are, timely release and equal access to the census information which we adhered to properly so those who criticize us have not studies statistics and are ignorant about the governing principles of the subject matter, ‘’ UBOS boss said.
He challenged all those disputing the census findings to read the report and positively give feedback that will help improve it because there are very important finding other than the errors that people comment on negatively.
Mukiza re-affirmed that, the 2024 census results were accurate but that it is data from the 2014 exercise that had been miss-represented, leading to a mix-up that affected the percentage calculations.
The acting Deputy Executive Director of UBOS Vincent Ssenono, explained and attributed the occurrence of errors to the compilation of the final report that lead to incorrect data being presented, especially concerning the ethnic grouping.
“The 2024 census exercise revealed a 2.4% growth rate for the Banyankore, Baganda, Iteso Basoga, and Bakiga. The barometer shows there was growth in almost all tribes,” Ssenono stated.
He also explained the inconsistence in the religious data where he shed light on the contention of growth in some religion while others are shrinking.
Ssenono noted that whereas, the population of traditional religious groups, like Roman Catholic, Muslim, and Anglican, have increased, their growth rates have declined compared to other religious groups such as the Pentecostals.
” Although Roman Catholics make the highest percentage 37.4% as per the 2024 census followed by Anglicans 30.0%, and Pentecostals 14.7%, the increase in terms of real population figures for later according to Ssenono was higher for the later than the two former ones.
He attributed this to the youths who leave Catholic and Anglican and join the Pentecostal believe , who when wedding go back to their mother religions.