While speaking to journalists at the Statistics House today, July 13th, 2023, Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) Deputy Executive Director Godfrey Nabongo said that the National Census, which was scheduled to take place in August 2023, has been postponed due to delays in procurement hurdles.
“The National Census has been postponed indefinitely due to procurement failures caused by the government’s delayed money distribution,” said Nabongo.
Earlier this month, several UBOS employees speculated that UBOS might not be ready to conduct the country’s census due to a failure to purchase the 150,000 biometric equipment needed for the exercise.
Dr. Chirs Mukiza, Executive Director of UBOS, rejected the report and advised the public to disregard it, claiming that it was propaganda circulated on social media by the old personnel who had been fired for insubordination.
“UBOS has already established census structures from the village to the national level, developed and pre-tested census questionnaires, completed census mapping in 40 districts, a census night has been gazetted for August 24th, and an exercise will take place for 10 days up until September 3rd, 2023,” Mukiza stated.
However, as per Nabongo, unforeseen circumstances have necessitated a pause in the implementation of the plans, citing unavoidable obstacles in the procurement process.
UBOS conducts censuses every ten years, with the most recent census taking place in 2014. According to Chris Baryomunsi, Minister of ICT and National Guidance, the national population and housing census was meant to take place a year earlier than projected.
The Census Bureau stated that census will take place in August 2024.