Local leaders in the Buvuma Islands have called upon the government to extend the enumeration days since most villages have not been counted and few enumerators were allocated to Buvuma district.
According to local leaders, the enumeration exercise is slow because the enumerators in the field are few, yet Buvuma Island is the largest island in the Buvuma Islands chain and has about 56 villages that are supposed to be counted.
“The villages and parishes that are in the census tablets are correct, but when they enter the subcounties and districts these villages are in, the tablet shows that the information put in is wrong, yet they are found in Buvuma, which is also challenging,’’ the local leaders revealed.
While being interviewed by journalists on May 17, 2024, Adrian Wasswa Ddungu, the LC V Chairman of Buvuma, said that Lufu Parish in Nayirambi Sub County has seven villages, but only one was put on the list to be counted.
Wasswa also revealed that Busamizi Sub County and Buwema Sub County have many villages that do not appear on the list to be counted and have not even seen any enumerators in any village in the two subcounties.
Wasswa said that the tablets are still slow, hence why there are many villages that have not been counted yet, and the enumeration exercise has only two days to come to an end.
“We need the government to give us more days because many villages in Buvuma have not been counted due to a lack of resources like enumerators and tablets too,” Wasswa revealed.
However, Patrick Mubiru, the Deputy Resident District Commissioner (RDC) in Buvuma, said that while it is true that there are villages that were not allocated enumerators, the exercise is going on smoothly despite challenges like a poor network and some islands and villages being far and scattered.
The Executive Director of the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), Dr. Chris Mukiza, recently said that the government has extended the census exercise in the three districts of Kampala, Wakiso, and Mukono by one more day. However, the rest of the country will close by the stipulated date.
