Principals to launch census

Acting Finance Minister Gorden Moyo has said.
The census runs from August 17 to 27.
Minister Moyo told journalists that preparations for the fourth national cen­sus were going on smoothly.

He urged people to respect the census.
Minister Moyo said enumerators were going to be drawn from the education sector, dis­missing claims that security forces were going to be enumerators.

“The highest offices in the country, the prin­cipals of this Government are going to launch it. We expect that to carry the importance it deserves,” Minister Moyo said.
He said people from the education sector would conduct the census.

“Results over the years have been credible, so we shall adhere to that ritual but that doesn’t mean the other departments don’t have a role to play. Soldiers have to protect enumerators and they also have a limited role in enumerat­ing in their cantons.”

Minister Moyo said progress had been made in preparation for the census. To date, he said, the training of national, provincial, district and enumeration area supervisors had been com­pleted. The training of enumerators and super­visors has started countrywide.

“Training for the census has started country­wide and we will be informing the public on what will be taking place from time to time,” Zimstat director general Mr Mutasa Dzinotizei said. Yesterday enumerators and supervisors reported at different training centres for con­firmation and roll call.
About 31 000 enumerators and 6 000 super­visors were recruited to conduct the census.

At Girls High School the attendance was overwhelming with some individuals who had not been selected for the national exercise reporting to the centre to try their luck.

There were also reports of uniformed forces who converged at the centres to squeeze them­selves into the exercise. It is believed that an individual will get a pay-out of US$80 per day and US$800 for the whole exercise, making the exercise attractive, especially to civil servants.

Zimstat assistant co-ordinator Mr Clemence Masawi, who was at the Girls High School training centre yesterday, said it was a day of confirmation and roll call. “We are going to start the actual training tomorrow (Wednes­day) as today we were only directing the enu­merators to the areas of training,” he said.

Mr Masawi said the programme had been affected by the turn-out of individuals who were not on the list. At least US$37,2 million has been made available for the programme with a further US$2 million being required.