admin
the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZimStat) said yesterday.
In an interview, ZimStat census and surveys director Mr Washington Mapeta said enumerators will officially stop collecting data tonight before their supervisors start editing the questionnaires.
The population census kicked off on 18 August.
“The official 2012 data collection ends on 27 August at midnight. Enumerators and their supervisors will then edit the questionnaires for three days. The editing process is meant to check for consistence in the collected data for every individual. For instance if a woman is 30 years old, her age, occupation, first live birth and level of education have to be consistent,” said Mr Mapeta.
“If the supervisors notice that any information that they have does not tally, they will go back to the household or individual in question to verify and then correct the information.”
Mr Mapeta said ZimStat was satisfied with the progress made so far, as the majority of the people in the country have been counted.
“The process has progressed well and we are satisfied with how we have moved since the start of the exercise. The census teams have worked hard and made sure that everyone is counted.
“Most of the teams have actually finished counting people in their assigned areas and only a few areas are yet to be covered. We have had experiences where some individuals resisted to be counted for their own reasons, but such people are still registered under unknown individuals, with estimated sex and age,” said Mr Mapeta.
He urged those who might not have been counted by midnight today to approach the enumerators or their provincial offices and notify them.
“I would like to encourage people who might not have been counted during the exercise, to make appointments with the enumerators or visit our provincial offices, where they will give them the required information.
“The population census can never be 100 percent accurate, but we are certain that it would be 99,9 percent,” said Mr Mapeta.
He said they were using a de facto counting method for the census, which meant that they were counting the number of people in a household on the day the enumerator visited.
A de facto census counts people where they are on the census day and does not take into consideration their usual place of residence.
“This method is cheaper and dependable in the sense that it can produce much more reliable results, but we have incorporated features of a de jure method, whereby census enumerators count people at their usual places of residence regardless of where they are on the census day.
“This is why we ask people of the number of deaths per family from the beginning of the year,” said Mr Mapeta.
Some people, such as gold panners, popularly known as omakorokoza, have been shunning the census in Gwanda.
There were also reports that in some low-density suburbs in Harare some families were reportedly denying enumerators access to their homes.
The first census was conducted in 1982 and there were 7,6 million people in the country while in 1992 the population was 10,4 million and 10 years later, there were 11,6 million people.
Online Reporter