Where is the Census?
Editorial...
Stabroek News
April 23, 2004
Eight weeks ago, Chief Statistician, Lennox Benjamin, handed over the preliminary report on the findings of the 2002 population and housing census to Minister of Finance, Saisnarine Kowlessar. This was to be presented to Cabinet and then released to the public.
The public is still waiting and many are speculating why it would take Cabinet eight weeks to pontificate on the findings of the census. One theory is that the rate of emigration in the population is alarming and this is one of the reasons why the government may be reluctant to release the findings. Whatever the reason, the government should delay no longer. After all, census data is a public issue and not a government secret.
It is understandable that because of capacity constraints, the Bureau of Statistics will take some time to make the final report available. The last census was in 1992 and most people would be interested in finding out the rate of emigration, the birth rate, the death rate and the size of the population among other data. Such data is routinely available in developed countries and allows for proper planning within the economy by both the private and public sectors.
If the 2004 budget is to be taken seriously, the population grew by 0.3% from 749 000 in 2002 to 751 000 in 2003. This means that real GDP per capita would have fallen in a shrinking economy instead of increasing, as the Minister would like to tell us.
However, the demographic breakdown of the census data would make for interesting reading given the long-standing reliance on race-based politics.
Secretary to the Cabinet, Dr Roger Luncheon, has said that the report should have been released. He was assured by press liaison officer Robert Persaud at a media briefing on Wednesday that this has not been done.
We call on the government to stop delaying and release the preliminary findings of the census. After all, this is not data on economic performance which takes months to be finalised in Guyana and can be subjected to excuses that all the information had not come in. The preliminary report has been with the government for 56 days.