By Leonard Kamugisha Akida,
KAMPALA
The Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) is facing a payment crisis after thousands of enumerators and supervisors who participated in this year’s National Population and Housing Census (NPHC) have not received their compensation.
According to UBOS, 1,519 enumerators and 1,371 enumeration supervisors are still awaiting payment due to technical issues such as mismatched names, lost census equipment, and delayed submission of names by accounting officers.
Didacus Okoth, the senior public relations officer for Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) attributed the delays to logistical and technical issues such as mismatched names, lost census equipment such as tablets, USB chargers and accessories, and delayed submission of the names by accounting officers in their respective local government areas.
Accordingly, 829 out of 122,026 tablets and 11,733 out of 119,418 power banks used during the enumeration period from May 10 to 25 are still missing and have not been retrieved.
Okoth said that they have so far paid 115,846 (98.7 percent) of the 115, 846 enumerators while 13,273 of the 14,643 enumeration supervisors have received their compensation. Many of the participants are growing impatient, but Okoth assured them of the bureau’s commitment to clear pending payments.
“UBOS would like to assure the public especially those who have not received their payment that all efforts are being put towards ensuring that everyone is paid. We are working closely with officials of the local government especially in districts and cities to ensure that the pending field participants are all cleared for payment,” he said.
UBOS also reported that a total of 3, 240 field guides who participated in enumeration, 120 sub-county supervisors and 663 district officials have not been paid.
Additionally, some service providers involved in the census exercise have yet to receive their payment. Okoth explained that the delay is due to inaccuracies in account details provided by the affected service providers. However, he assured that the issue is being addressed and resolved to ensure timely payment to those affected.
The government contributed Shs328.74 billion (99 percent) of the total census budget, while development partners provided the remaining 1 percent, amounting to Shs 18.5 billion. A total of Shillings 88.7 billion has been used to pay the beneficiaries through an e-Cash platform, according to UBOS. Shs61.72 billion was spent on training at various levels including Training of Trainees, National, district and cities and at sub-county levels.
Okoth also retaliated that they are going to carry out a post-enumeration survey in 135 districts and 11 cities to verify the census data.
