Catholic church pledges to support UBOS during census period

The Archbishop Dr. Paul Ssemogerere of Kampala Diocese has called upon the Catholic community and all the faithful, to prepare and give their support to UBOS field staff during the population census exercise.

Saying this Ssemogerere had hosted officials from Uganda Bureau of Statistics led by the chairperson of UBOS Dr. Albert Byamugisha, who requested the Catholic Church to call on its community to be counted.

According to Dr. Ssemogerere, members of the Catholic community should provide accurate information regarding their homesteads and answer well all nessecary questions from the enumerators.

He said, “Good enough we have been given that day as a public holiday, therefore we have no excuses of being absente. We can stay home and wait for the officers to come and take this information since it’s private and confidential as I have been told,”

Dr. Ssemogerere called upon enumerators and all UBOS staff who will be in the field during the time of the census, to carry out the census accurately, since many organizations nowadays forge data.

“That is very good information for all of us. I request you to do everything accurately instead of guessing because we need accurate results. In Uganda sometimes we do fake things and then we just take them as precise,”

He said the exercise will be indeed beneficial to the church as well, since it will help them know how many Catholics are in Uganda and how many members of other religions they need to corporate with.

The chairman board of directors UBOS Dr. Albert Byamugisha requested Ugandans to be available on 10th as the census commences since it’s a day gazzeted as public holiday.

Byamugisha said this year’s census is focusing on 5 key areas such as; How many we are, Where we are, How we are living, What we own and Where we access services.

He said, the information collected will further support evidence based decision making and facilitate investment decisions in the various sectors of the economy.

“In addition, the information will act as benchmark for the Church to understand its population and their related characteristics and therefore, facilitate designing of programmes that are beneficial to such communities,” he added.

Byamugisha further emphasized that the Census field staff will be clearly identified by an identity card.

This year’s Census Night will be on 09th May 2024, which is the reference date for the entire census enumeration period.

Uganda will be joining other African countries in conducting a digital census by using Computer Assisted Personal Interview (CAPI) Tablets and a Global Positioning System (GPS) to capture all the relevant information.