The 2010 National Census anticipated to take place in March, 2010 is likely to delay. This is due to the fact that the Census Secretariat under the Ghana Statistical Service is now capturing and collating data from the trial census organised in November, last year, and a minimum period of one year is required to organise a national census after a trial census has been organised. Mr Francis Kojo Yankey, a member of the Census Implementation Committee at the Census Secretariat, who made this known to the Daily Graphic in an interview, said the secretariat was still in the process of capturing and collating data from the trial census organised in November, 2009. Mr Yankey, who was supported by a team of technical experts from the Census Secretariat, however, stated that work on the trial census would be facilitated to ensure that the national census takes place within 2010 but he was definite that the census could not be conducted in March, as anticipated. According to Mr Yankey, the secretariat needed time to capture the data received from the field during the trial census, saying that problems and lessons learnt from the trial census would help to fine-tune the national census. He said although Ghana normally organised its national census, which captured the data of every person living within the borders of the country at census night, in or around March every 10 years, this year's census would delay due to other factors such as the commencement of the African Cup of Nations and the World Cup, which could affect the seriousness of the census programme. He said the secretariat was, however, awaiting a definite date to be set by the National Census Steering Committee headed by the Minister of Finance. Mr Yankey said the secretariat would, however, continue to organise publicity and educational activities on the census to ensure that people knew what was expected of them when the census finally begun. As part of efforts to ensure that people kept abreast of the census before it was normally rolled out, he said the questionnaire would be made available on the Internet to ensure that people had a fair idea of the questions to expect. He said three new areas on agriculture, Information Communication Technology (ICT) and disability had been introduced into the 2010 questionnaire for future use of such data. He said some of the normal questions that would appear on the questionnaire would elicit information on age, fertility, religious affiliation, as well as educational and economic char-acteristics of people. Mr Yankey said the census, which would also cover houses, would capture all housing structures, including kiosks, mosques, churches and school buildings in the country. He said the secretariat had estimated to capture about 25 million people who would be residing within the country on the day of the census. He said his outfit was, therefore, going to recruit and train between 55,000 and 62,000 people this year. Out of the number who would be recruited, only 36,000 would be finally engaged as enumerators and 9,000 as supervisors to undertake the exercise. As a way of making the work easy, Mr Yankey also said the questionnaires would also be translated into the various local languages to suit different populations. He appealed to the general public to ensure that they left behind their personal details to the household head where they found themselves on the day of the census, since the questionnaire would require the capturing of the characteristics of everybody in the country. On the issue of the three districts who refused to be part of the trial census in the Brong Ahafo Region, Mr Yankey said the problem had been resolved and called on all persons who would find themselves in the country on the day of the census to co-operate with the enumerators for a successful exercise. Source: Daily Graphic