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Nelson Gahadza and Sandra Maziwisa

FINANCE and Economic Development Minister Mthuli Ncube says Treasury has set aside US$85 million for a population census to be held from April 21 to April 30 2022.

Giving an update on the national census at a press conference yesterday, Minister Ncube said Census Committees from national to district level are now constituted, and these will champion census activities and logistics.

“This census for 2022 is going to be a unique census in the sense that we are going to be using electronic tablets to collect data, for the enumerators to collect data rather than the paper approach which we used to use which was cumbersome and it would take time to process the data later, so this time around it will be different,” he said.

He noted that preliminary results were expected to be out by August 1, 2022. Zimbabwe has since independence in 1980 held population censuses every 10 years beginning in 1982 and at the last official count in 2012, Zimbabwe’s population was estimated at 13,1 million.

Minister Mthuli said the US$85 million would, at the current auction market Zimbabwe dollar exchange rate, amount to about $9 billion and this had been budgeted for.

“We have the resources set aside already because we can see we’ve covered good ground in 2021 and there will be adequate provision,” he said.

The Minister noted that around 85 percent of the country had been mapped, with Bulawayo, Harare and Mashonaland Central Provinces completed and it is envisaged that mapping will be completed by 21st January 2022.

He said training of enumerators for the pilot census was completed on 13th November 2021 and enumeration for the pilot census is scheduled for 18th – 27th November 2021.

Minister Mthuli said to date 31,000 thousand tablets have been delivered while delivery of the outstanding twenty thousand tablets will be done before end of year.

“We need about 51 000 tablets for enumerators, therefore, we will be engaging development partners, to assist with the procurement of the outstanding tablets,” he said.

The Finance Minister highlighted that a second pilot census to fine tune the process will be conducted from 18 January 2022 to the end of January 2022.

He said training will continue at different levels, such as enumerators, supervisors, and others.

“The actual date for the census is April 2022, but the census week starts on April 21, 2022 to 30 April 2022.

“The post enumeration phase, which is to analyse, and publish preliminary will be in August 2022, then the national results will be published at the end of November 2022, and the provincial results will be on 30 November 2022,” he said.

The Minister noted that census analysis will continue and by December 2022, the dissemination of the census to relevant stakeholders will commence while other processes will run into 2023.

The census will be carried out by the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency with support from the United Nations Population Fund Zimbabwe (UNFPA) and other development partners.