‘I feel like a slave’

A CENSUS supervisor who started out with a team of five census takers, which has dwindled to two, is expressing disappointment with how STATIN has been handling the project.

The data collection for the census started in September 2022, and was originally scheduled to end in December of the same year. However, it was extended to end within the first quarter of 2023 to ensure maximum coverage of the Jamaican population.

The process is ongoing.

The supervisor, who requested anonymity, explained that there was no clear indication about when the census will end as each month a new deadline is created. The worker continued that no new contracts were created, nor were the old ones amended to include the extended period for which the employees were still working. This has raised concern about the legality of employees continuing to work on expired contracts.

“I feel like I am a slave at this point. You can’t tell me when I’ll be able to complete the exercise. You cannot give me the personnel and the resources that I need to complete the exercise and you telling me that I cannot get paid until the exercise is completed. And it’s been eight months and I’ve only been contracted for three ... they are wasting people’s time,” the supervisor who requested to remain nameless, said.

NO SALARY

As such, supervisors have not received salary since the census began in late 2022.

“We know that we are being held hostage and at this point I can even call it slavery because we are working for free. We have not seen any compensation ... and we’ve been driving up and down (working) from October,” she said.

The new compensation agreement will see urban census supervisors receiving $151,000 for travelling allowance (from a previous $125,000) and $170,000 for the completion of a supervisory zone (from a previous $160,000) after the project is completed.

While a rural census supervisor will receive $166,000 for travelling allowance (previously $140,000) and $170,000 for the completion of a supervisory zone (previously $160,000) after completion of the census.

Due to a shortage of census takers, the supervisor stated that just four of the seven geographic areas that her team is required to complete, have been achieved.

“I’ve asked repeatedly, how I’m gonna get the rest of the areas done because persons have quit ... but they are very closed mouth,” she said.

“They keep saying that they don’t have any census takers in the field, but they are frustrating the ones that they already have out there,” she added.

She continued that her team was unable to close previous ED periods despite the work being completed, due to high levels of questionnaire rejection from STATIN.

She added that STATIN was returning questionnaires for seemingly illogical queries such as why was a child’s age recorded as 12 years old when their level of schooling was recorded as high school.

“But we know that we have children that are 12 who attend high school. So every time that they have to send it back, it takes so much longer for them to approve it so that workers can be paid,” she said.

SERIOUS CHALLENGE

She noted that because STATIN has not sufficiently educated the public about how invasive and lengthy the data collection process can be, workers were challenged as persons were not willing to participate.

Some of the questions asked include; the mortality i n the house – which some may not want to talk about especially if the death is recent; and wanting information about a woman’s fertility and whether she had any miscarriages, stillbirth, etcetera, which may be perceived as very sensitive information.

And so, there are cases where the census taker is already halfway through the i nterview when the individual decides to stop cooperating. This then results in incomplete questionnaires which cannot be submitted, and amounts to time wasted.

She complained too about delays in receiving identification cards for workers due to system issues.

“It is very, very disappointing, having done a similar project at my nine-to-five (job) at another Government agency. I am just surprised that there have been no consequences of this, especially since there’s international funding involved by the World Bank. It’s a very bad showing on Jamaica and it might jeopardise future disbursement of funds,” she added.

Carol Coy, director general, STATIN, declined to comment on the criticisms made by the workers or provide an update on progress of the census. She told The Gleaner that she would need to first officially present a report to Dr Nigel Clarke, minister of finance and the public service.