admin
The final report of Zimbabwe’s 2012 national census is out and it puts the country’s population at 13,061,239 people compared to 11,634,663 recorded in 2002. Harare has the largest population of 2,123,132 while Bulawayo has the lowest population of 653,337. The national population increased by 10,9 percent over the past decade but surprisingly Bulawayo’s population dropped from 676,000 in 2002 to 653,337 in 2012.
Bulawayo residents, the political leadership and civil society have over the years disputed Bulawayo population figures as they are convinced the city’s population is about a million people.
There is general belief that there is massive undercounting of people as a result of the methods used by the Zimbabwe National Statistical Agency (Zimstat). In 2002 when the figure of 676,000 was given as the population of Bulawayo, the then mayor, Japhet Ndabeni-Ncube said the figure was way below the figure shown by municipal records.
To support his argument, he said the city then had a 100,000 housing units with an average of 10 people putting the city’s population at about a million people. When the preliminary results of the 2012 population census were released, the then Mayor, clr Thaba Moyo said he believed Bulawayo had more people than the figure given.
The Bulawayo Residents’ Association (Bura) chairman Winos Dube also disputed the 2012 preliminary report figure saying he believed the city’s population was well above one million people. There are two methods of conducting a population census. The first is the counting of all usual residents at a place and the second method is counting of all persons found at a place on the day of the census.
Zimstat has been using the second method of counting all persons found at the place on the day of the census which means those who usually reside at the place but are absent on the day of the census are not counted. The issue of coming up with accurate population figures has not only been a challenge confined to Zimbabwe but has been a problem worldwide over the years.
A population census provides very vital information showing the country’s demographics. This information is very crucial for planning purposes and even allocation of resources hence the interest generated by results of each population census. It is logical for any government worth its salt to allocate resources based on the number of people in a given province. What this simply means is that those provinces with more people should equally get more resources.
It is for this reason that results of each population census should be as accurate as possible so that planning or distribution of resources is done from an informed position. We therefore understand the concerns of Bulawayo residents, the political leadership and civil society when census results seem to indicate massive undercounting of the city’s residents.
It is a fact that the city’s economy is largely dependent on the informal sector and therefore its residents constitute a greater percentage of cross-border traders who are hardly at home. The city also contributes a significant percentage of Zimbabweans in the Diaspora who cannot be counted out when it comes to planning for the future.
We want at this juncture to challenge Zimstat to revisit the method it is using in counting the people with a view to perfecting it so that the results are not disputed. The Bulawayo community on its part should not just dismiss results but should instead bring forward empirical evidence to support claims that the city’s population is undercounted.
Online Reporter