Ethiopia’s Population and Housing Census is postponed again after debates in the joint Parliament and House of Federation members meeting. Security said to be principal challenge
borkena
June 10, 2019
The joint meeting of Ethiopian House of People’s representative and Ethiopian House of Federation passed a decision on Monday, June 10, 2019, to postpone National Population and Housing Census for a second time, reported state-affiliated Fana Broadcasting Corporation (FBC).
Initially, it was scheduled to take place in 2017 /2018 fiscal year but was postponed to 2018/2019. The census is extended for one more year. It is extended on grounds of security consideration across the country.
Apparently, there were no divergences on the issue of extending the census. The difference was on how long to extend it. Accordingly, members of the two houses debated on two on as to whether it should be extended indefinitely for more than a year or only for six months.
Those who supported the six months time frame argued that the security situation in the country is improving and six months of extension is enough.
The counter-argument was that although security situation is improving in the country, there are no conducive conditions to carry out the census.
Millions of Ethiopians are internally displaced which is said to have a negative impact on the census.
Another point raised in favor of extending the census by more than one year is that employees of The Ethiopian Central Statistics Agency (CSA) can not freely move from place to place due to the security situation.
Majority of the members of the two houses supported extension for more than one year. Thirty members voted against it and three members voted abstain.
Ethiopian Central Statistics Agency finalized plan earlier to conduct undertake technologically-assisted (digital) Census, for the first time in the history of the country, and hundreds of thousands of employees would be deployed. As many as 180,000 tablets were ready for use.
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