– Finance Minister tells National Assembly

SENIOR Minister within the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh, on Wednesday, told the National Assembly that the professionals at the Bureau of Statistics are continuing to advance works on the national population census.

Dr Singh was, at the time, responding to an oral question posed by opposition member Annette Ferguson at Wednesday’s sitting of the National Assembly.

The member questioned what percentage of the population has been counted thus far, to which the Finance Minister noted that one could not say what percentage of the total population has been counted if the census has not yet been completed.

He said, “The total population will only be known when the census is completed and so, therefore, to ask what percentage of the total population has been counted thus far reflects the honourable member’s persistence in providing amusement to this house and to the people of Guyana.”

Meanwhile, when asked about the presentation of the preliminary census report, Dr Singh assured the house that members of the team at the Bureau of Statistics continue to work on the census and advance works to have same completed and sent to the national assembly.

He revealed that teams are doing repeat visits to some regions so as to get correct counts of homes that were not counted during the initial stages of the census.

“The team at the Bureau of Statistics is in fact doing that very exercise of going back to the homes that were not enumerated, going back to regions including those that were mentioned in the budget speech and I’m pleased to say other regions in fact where additional work is required,” the Finance minister said.

The Bureau of Statistics, in September 2022, began the enumeration process of counting all people in Guyana as part of the National Population and Housing Census 2022.

At that time it was noted that the 2022 census was a historic one as the enumerators would collect data electronically instead of using paper, as was done in the past.