Statistics Botswana fails to deliver census results

GOTHATAONE MOENG
Staff Writer | Tuesday April 9, 2013 00:00

The organisation now says it may disseminate the results in the last quarter of this year. Statistics Botswana released preliminary results from the August 2011 census in three months (November 2011) and availed a report on Population of Towns and Associated Localities in June 2012, with an assurance that a report with more detailed information would be disseminated last September.  The detailed report from the census was expected to give exhaustive data on statistics such as the rate of unemployment in the country, the average age of the populace, the number of residents versus expatriates and other information used in policy formation.

However, Statistics Botswana is attempting to dismiss the earlier deadline, saying the dissemination of the results is a continuous process. 'Detailed sets of results will continue to be released when such are ready,' Themba Sibanda, Statistics Botswana senior corporate communication officer, wrote in response to a Mmegi questionnaire.He said the organisation plans to complete the 're-validation of data' by end of this month.

'Arrangements are already in place to share data with stakeholders for in-depth analysis around June 2013, with dissemination of results in the last quarter of 2013,' he explained. Statistics Botswana distanced itself from reports alleging that the data collected during the census two years ago may be muddled because of the inadequacies of the enumerators.

The organisation departed from using teachers as enumerators and employed out-of-school youth in the exercise. While confirming that there are discrepancies in the data, Sibanda said it cannot be concluded that the involvement of the youth is to blame.'One cannot point a finger at the problems encountered on the datasets to the youth since the conduct of a census involves many processes and different personnel at various stages,' he explained. He conceded that the drop out of some enumerators during the exercise after they found jobs may have compromised data quality but efforts were made to minimise the damage. He said they recruited enough people to replace those who dropped out during the process.

'There could be a few odd cases where dropouts may have somehow compromised data quality but efforts were made to minimise such,' he said. During the release of the preliminary results in 2011, results showed that the population has passed the two million mark. The follow-up June 2012 report indicated that for every 100 women in the country, there are 96 men.