Africa-Press – Uganda. The start of Uganda’s 11th census on Friday had no shortage of drama, with an enumerator in Njeru municipality, Buikwe District, being hospitalised with a stab wound, and more enumerators in Katabi, Entebbe, shredding their appointment letters after learning of a 10 percent cut in their payments. To top things up, a host of faulty machine glitches contrived to stick out like a sore thumb across all four corners of the country.
After finding itself on the back foot, the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (Ubos) put out a statement in an attempt to take control of the narrative. Ubos disclosed that 20,000 field enumerators and supervisors who were up in arms about the faulty Computer-Assisted Personal Interviews (CAPI) tablets were not hired through the official electronic recruitment system.
“In majority of districts, enumeration started smoothly with 94,099 enumerators and supervisors having been assigned roles and responsibilities on the enumeration system,” Dr Chris Mukiza, the Ubos executive director, revealed.
The government took out Shs138 billion to procure and purchase the tablets that were placed, per Dr Mukiza, in the hands of 114,099 enumerators. The same tablets will be used during the 2026 General Election. In Busia District, one enumerator identified as Juma admitted he had challenges logging to the Ubos server due to alleged system failure and persistent popping up of “training mode” on the monitor.
In the capital, enumerators tasked to run the rule over the parishes of Kansanga and Kibuye II in Makindye Division were forced to return home after their tablets failed to work. They too could not connect to the Ubos server. There was better luck on Rubaga Musigula where Ms Juliet Nakavuma told us that residents were keen to take part in the census. “Before, we had a challenge with the gadgets because they were not working out but we have rectified that with our technicians and the work is moving smoothly,” Ms Nakavuma said.
Still, Ms Joanita Namuli, a resident of Rubaga Division, told that sightings of enumerators were few and far between.
“Since morning, we have not seen any enumerator moving around or parish supervisor to tell us the progress,” she said, questioning the wisdom of announcing a public holiday.
One enumerator assigned to the division told us that whereas their group had 70 people, “only 30 kits were given to us.”
In Bwaise, a section of enumerators staged a sit-down strike over their allowances. In Katabi, the enumerators alleged that their appointment letters indicated that their allowances had been knocked back to Shs50,000 for 10 days of work from Shs500,000.
“Management has guided the District Census Officers and District Census Commissioner representatives to fasten assigning roles and responsibilities to the affected enumerators to enable them perform their enumeration duties effectively,” Dr Mukiza, who opted to comment on the issue of allowances, said.
In Jinja City, the exercise was marred by faulty machines, delayed deployment of enumerators, which saw several of them stranded after they were not allocated work stations, while those who were allocated had technical glitches with data collection as many tablets were not synchronised. Many interviewed for this story said they had received training, but have not been allocated areas to cover.
Jinja City Deputy Mayor Fazira Kawuma said although the city experienced the aforementioned challenges on the first day, “everything possible” was being done to ensure the exercise ran as planned.
Meanwhile, President Museveni led a cast of high-profile Ugandans to be enumerated on the opening day of the census. Others included Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja, Finance minister Matia Kasaija, and a string of cultural leaders.
Elsewhere, 325 enumerators and 125 supervisors were deployed in 269 prison units across 19 regions to conduct a census on 70,000 inmates.
Publicity and advocacy advisor for the National Population and Housing Census 2024, Alfred Geresom Musamali, acknowledged the challenges on day one, which he said were “nationwide”, but added that they were working around the clock to overcome all challenges.
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