IPNEWS-Monrovia: The media quoting the Speaker of the House of Representatives Bhofal Chambers have reported that the House has met with top officials of the Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo-Information Services (LISGIS) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and agreed to push the starting date of the census by additional 15 days.
That means, the national census will now kick off on November 22, 2022 instead of October 24, this Monday.
According to the media, the news comes amid a chaotic recruitment exercise that has brought LISGIS, who had earlier been rocked by integrity problem, under the spotlight again for all the negative reasons.
All across the country, thousands of applicants who accepted to undergo LISGIS’ training to serve as enumerators have complained that their names were omitted after successfully passing the aptitude test, the last step for qualification.
LISGIS acting Director Wilmot Smith
Even, some of those whose names were posted on LISGIS website as successful candidates were denied entry to their assigned training venues.
One of the enumerators identified as Grace Dickson told a local daily, FrontPage Africa that she had to travel back and forth to be accepted for the training but was denied twice.
“Since this morning, I have been going from place to place. My name was placed on LISGIS website but the supervisor at Caldwell told me to go to where I took the test,” Grace Dickson said.
She added: “I do not know what to do because I am tired of moving from one place to another and cannot get any results.”
Another enumerator assigned at the Boatswain Jr. High School in Jamaica Road also told FPA that prior to his acceptance, the names of every one of them who sat the test at Boatswain Public School names did not come up.
“We were about 175 people that took the test at Boatswain Jr. High School. All of us that took the test, none of our names came up. LISGIS made an error but they told us to keep calm. They gave us another form to sign and they accepted all of us in. The people are making the recruitment process chaotic and complicated,” he said speaking on anonymity.
Amid the chaos and irregularities on the recruitment process, LISGIS’ acting Director Wilmot F. Smith said the ‘Census House’ was ready to go ahead with the process.
According to him, they have met with the local authorities in every county and have divided the country into six regions.
“We are ready, we did the aptitude test. We are conducting training. Even after the census, there will be post-analysis done so that does not mean that we are not ready. We are more than ready and we will deliver with the help of the Liberian people,” Smith said.
He added: “We have all of the experts here and they are working on this project. We have to keep our eyes on the President’s biggest picture, we have a project to deliver. Why it is true that there are some missteps that we are correcting we cannot regret now, we have to make sure that this project should not fail.”
However, amid the Speaker’s revelation, it is a clear testament that LISGIS is not ready all. And in order to live up to its promise to successfully conduct Liberia’s first digital census as it promised, it should make use of this opportunity and put its ‘house in order’.
While LISGIS will be relieved with the Speaker’s pronouncement, it should be noted that nothing has been finalized. Since the previous schedule was derived through an Act of the Legislature, the proposed dates have to be legislated. That is, both the House and the Liberian Senate should approve through unanimous votes and be signed by the President.
Liberia last conducted National Census in 2008 two years into the first six-year term of former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. The next season was then in keeping with the constitution scheduled for 2018, but since the George Weah’s administration that is yet to happen as the census have been postponed on countless occasions, citing the issue of funding.
