Census to cost Sh18.5 billion, Sh3.5 billion for phones

Next year’s population census will cost taxpayers at least Sh18.5 billion, it has emerged. Out of this amount, Sh3.5 billion will be spent to procure smartphones at Sh15, 000 each.

The figure means the country will spend more than double what it spent in the 1999 census in which the country spent about Sh8 billion.

Kenya Bureau of statistics Director General Zachary Mwangi made the revelations when he appeared before National Assembly’s Committee on Implementation of the constitution (CIOC) yesterday.

Mr Mwangi said the state was planning to hire 170,000 personnel to undertake the exercise that is conducted after every 10 years. He pleaded with the lawmakers to ensure adequate funding for the smooth running of the exercise saying it was important in determining resource allocations as well as review of political and administrative boundaries.

The counting is planned for the night of August 24 and 25, 2019.

Financial years

“Its implementation runs from 2015/2016 to 2020/2021 financial years and it is estimated to cost a total of Sh18.5 billion,” Mwangi told the MPs.

“The bureau and the collaborating institutions are requesting for the committee to support the census by ensuring that adequate funds are allocated and to champion for the census in order to seek public support and participation in its processes,” he added.

Mwangi said the increase in cost was as a result of technology components to be deployed in the census to minimise errors.

The agency plans to pilot the exercise on August 25 this year as part of its preparations for next year. Mwangi and his team were hard pressed by MPs to explain the circumstances that led to the inflation of population in North Eastern during the last census that occasioned a protracted court battle.

Last census

“There was a court case around the last census concerning North Eastern results. The population ballooned all over a sudden. It was not clear whether we counted people from across the porous Somalia borders,” said Mathare MP Antony Oluoch.

The team assured the MPs adequate preparations have been made for the exercise, including the use of the smartphones.

“If we get wrong numbers then there would be a mismatch in resource allocation. We have to get it right,” said Mwangi.In February 2012, the then Minister for Planning Wycliffe Oparanya tabled a revised post census figures in Parliament showing that population figures for Lagdera, Mandera East, Mandera Central, Mandera West, Wajir East, Turkana North, Turkana South and Turkana Central districts were inflated in the 2009 population count.

The inflated figures read that the two regions had 2.35 million people while Mr Oparanya's figures read 1.3 million as the actual population size.