The Chairman of the National Population Census, Nasir Kwarra, has asked for the release of the N31 billion capital allocation in the 2023 budget for preparatory operations ahead of the census on Thursday in Abuja.
According to The Punch, Kwarra also asked N225.2 billion from President Bola Tinubu to pay for training and fieldwork allowances, retraining of trainers, and the conduct of a second-class Trial Census.
He was in the State House to brief the President on the Status of the Implementation of the 2023 Population and Housing Census, where he estimated that the entire cost of the exercise would be N546.72 billion and proposed that a proclamation be issued for a new Census date later in 2023 or early in 2024.
The President’s Special Adviser on Special Duties, Communications, and Strategy, Dele Alake, stated this in a Thursday statement headed ‘Population Census: President Tinubu pledges support for NPC, calls for data integrity.’
The Chairman of the NPC stated that the Commission has trained 60,000 instructors who would then train enumerators and supervisors and that plans for final training were being finalized but were hampered by the transition process for a new government and funding challenges.
As a result, the exercise was postponed by the immediate-past President Muhammadu Buhari, he explained.
Kwarra also emphasized the Commission’s financial issues, stating they were waiting for the President to endorse the NPC and approve the census’s conduct.
He stated that the agency has delimited the whole country, with only one or two areas remaining, and that this will be completed soon.
Following a methodology assessment, the Commission estimated the overall cost of the Census to be N546.72 billion.
Kwarra also asked N225.2 billion from the President to finance training and fieldwork allowances, trainer retraining, and the conduct of a second-class Trial Census.
President Tinubu was also tasked with authorizing and convening a stakeholders’ meeting with the organized private sector and overseas partners in order to raise financing for the project.
The NPC Boss informed the President that Nigeria had built a useful database for national planning, infrastructure development, and income generation for the government based on the preparations done thus far.
