Census ends, results in 3 months

THE Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (Zimstat) says it will release findings from the 2022 Zimbabwe Population and Housing Census that ended yesterday in three months’ time.

However, a mop-up exercise will run for another week to cater for those who may have been omitted in the initial count. The census started on April 21. Speaking to The Sunday Mail last night, Zimstat spokesperson Ms Mercy Chidemo said the three months is for analysing the data which was gathered by enumerators across the country.

“We expect results to be ready in three months’time. We have a data quality management team which has been working on cleaning the data that was being synced to the server.

“We are having a mop-up exercise from May 1 -5, 2022 for those who were not found at home by enumerators,” Ms Chidemo said.

This year’s census was paperless, as enumerators used tablets to capture the data.

The new technology facilitates logic checks, validations during the interview, skip patterns, and makes the census more efficient in assuring high quality data enters the server without mistakes.

For the first time since 1901 when the first ever census was conducted, Zimstat introduced a dashboard that monitors the enumeration process and events on the field in real time.

In Zimbabwe, a census is conducted every 10 years and it informs how policies are crafted.

Meanwhile, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission completed the second phase of its Mobile Voter Registration blitz yesterday.

In a statement, chief elections officer Mr Utoile Silaigwana said those who want to register to vote should visit their offices in different districts across the country.

“…the commission’s 63 districts and 10 provincial offices will remain open during normal working hours for purposes of continuous voter registration in terms of 17A of the Electoral Act,” he said.