The Oti Regional Statistician, Henry Loglo, says he is positive about meeting the deadline allocated for the enumeration exercise in the region.

The exercise deadline, which was extended from the 11th, is expected to come off on Sunday, July 18.

Despite the initial challenges with boundaries where residents in some communities wanted to be captured in a particular area, some fisher folks on the islands in the region also thought enumerators were on the mission to rescue trafficked children.

Speaking to JoyNews, Henry Loglo said although there have been some delays in the enumeration exercise, his office has recorded over 96% of work done as of Thursday, July 15.

“Oti region, I can say that our expectation has been met, as at yesterday (Wednesday) we have enumerated about 96.2% of our expectation of those we think we can enumerate.

By that, we are on course, and the small percentage that is left would be completed.”

This is the maiden census exercise for the Oti Region, having been carved out of the Volta Region in a referendum on December 17, 2019.

The regional coordinating council and central government would rely and depend on the maiden figure figures for future planning development.

Henry Loglo also mentioned that the regional statistics office faced a number of challenges but were resolved, which has put his office in a position to meet the July 18th deadline.

He added his outfit, and some stakeholders (MP for the area-Wisdom Gidisu) have engaged residents regarding some boundary concerns and have come to terms to get them registered.

“Challenges have to do with boundary issues. Some people in some areas feel they should be enumerated under a particular district (Krachi East and Biakoye districts). When enumerators from Krachi East visited them, they said they would want to be registered under the Biakoye District.

We had to talk this over with them, and they agreed to be enumerated. Similar issues also came up in the Nkwanta North District but were also resolved,” he said.

“The other challenge had to with residents in the island communities who saw the presence of the enumerators as child rescuers so were unwilling to cooperate with them.”

The MP for the area, Wisdom Gidisu, was said to have intervened to provide some education and relevance on the exercise, which has yielded a positive result for the statistical service.

“These days, there is an operation going on with child labour issues, so when we initially went there, they thought we were going to arrest them. Luckily our Member of Parliament was around, and he spoke to the people.”

Mr Loglo is, therefore, confident that by the July 18th deadline, the region would have been done with the enumeration of targeted residents in the region, seeing most enumeration districts were almost done but for a few corrections and people to be enumerated.