IPNEWS: House of Representatives Speaker,  Bhofal Chambers has announced 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.

The news comes amid a chaotic recruitment exercise across the country that has brought LISGIS into a nearing mud.

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 sparking demonstrations and roadblocks in several counties across Liberia.

Some even stated that 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 FrontPage Africa that she had to travel back and forth to be accepted for the training but was denied twice.

Amid the chaos and irregularities in 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 now clear testament that LISGIS is not ready for the conduct of the National Housing census.