The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has bemoaned the low participation rate and minimum attention given to the ongoing 2021 Population and Housing Census exercise nationwide.

General Secretary of the party, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, in a press statement communicated that since the commencement of the exercise, there has been little publicity while enumerators have also not been seen in some areas in the country.

According to him, the current situation would not help government to obtain the true data of citizens in the country as the national exercise being carried out by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) is expected to come to a halt next week Monday, July 12.

“The census exercise which was started 11days ago and is scheduled to end on Monday, 12th July, has been very slow in reach, low on awareness and has received very minimum attention and publicity in the media. Many areas have reported ‘no show’, raising serious concerns about the integrity of the census process,” parts of the NDC communique read.

Mr Asiedu Nketia further stressed that “the importance of the census exercise to the infrastructural, political and socio-economic development of our country cannot be overemphasized, as it determines how the scarce national resources of this country are efficiently allocated to equitably address, the various developmental needs of the country.”

“Thus, failure to be counted has major implications for the efficient planning and deployment of developmental resources to our respective communities,” he added.

The opposition party is, therefore, admonishing members of the general public to actively participate and ensure they are counted before the exercise comes to an end.

“We want to use this opportunity to announce to the general public, particularly our members that, if for any reason, enumerators have not labelled your house or come to your home for the exercise, kindly call the Ghana Statistical Service toll free number on 0800-900-900 or 0800- 800-800 or 0800-426-426 and get counted,” the statement concluded.

Meanwhile, the Ghana Statistical Service has revealed that about 56.6 per cent of earmarked households have been counted nationwide.