Census dodgers, saboteurs face six months in prison

Ugandans who resist or sabotage the National Housing and Population Census due to start this Friday face up to six months in jail, or Shs600,000 fine, officials warned yesterday.

 The punishments are prescribed for persons convicted for breaching provisions of Section 29(3) of the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (Ubos) Act, 1998.

 It provides that any person who hinders an authorised officer, in this case enumerators and other Ubos officials, from performing lawful duties, refuses to furnish required information or makes false declarations commit an offence.

If convicted, the penalties under the Act are imprisonment of up to six months or a fine not exceeding thirty currency points (Shs600,000), or both.

“We shall use peace, but if we come to your home the first time and you refuse, second time you still refuse, third time you still refuse, you can be taken to police, then court,” Mr James Muwonge, the director of methodology and statistical coordination at Ubos, said.

Featuring for the second time at Uganda Police Force’s weekly press conference to provide update on the preparations for the census, Mr Muwonge said they were all set and he dissuaded Ugandans from resisting the exercise due to religious and cultural beliefs or other misconceptions.

“For example, some people claim they may die after being counted, which is [false]. So, the law provides that you can coerce somebody, but we don’t want to go to that level because our business is to collect information,” he said, “So, we want to make sure that we use the available channels and structures and systems to make sure that we get the responses.”

 This newspaper last week reported that a group of believers under Enjiri Cult group, which draws its members from mainly Luweero, Nakaseke, Kayunga and Nakasongola districts, vowed not to participate in the census on the pretext that the government had a hidden motive in counting citizens.

 Some of them claimed that enumeration is “satanic” and that those counted would die, something Ubos dismissed at yesterday’s media briefing at Police headquarters in Naguru, a Kampala suburb.

 News of the intended defiance last week prompted leaders in affected districts, led by respective resident district commissioners, to scramble to engage the cult members. We were unable by press time last evening to establish if they made a headway.

 Ubos officials separately said in Kampala that they were due to visit the four districts to speak to the groups “still adamant” about the exercise.

 This is not the first time that individuals, citing religious beliefs, obstinately resist enumeration.

 During Uganda’s last National Population and Housing Census in 2014, which cost Shs200 billion, law enforcement in the eastern Bulambuli District took into custody eighteen members of Triple 666, a cult that prohibited its members from participating in activities deemed “earthly”, including vaccination of children.

 More such suspects – identified then as members of Ngulhumbuya religious sect - were detained in Mpondwe-Lhubiriha town in the western Kasese District on allegations of declining to be counted. 

 Bureaucrats have vowed not to entertain a repeat of such sabotage to this forthcoming census, which runs from Friday to May 19, next week.

The government has declared this Friday, the first day of the enumeration, as a public holiday to allow employed Ugandans to stay home and participate in the exercise.

Specific category

The Ubos Director for Methodology and Statistical Coordination, Mr James Muwonge, disclosed yesterday that slum dwellers, employees working night shift and the homeless will be among the first to be counted.

 “We have arrangements with Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) to see that we reach out to all these groups of people … and enumerate [them] on the first day of census,” he said.

 The statistics agency has designated May 9, which is this Thursday, as the Census Night --- the reference night before the day that the actual counting begins.

 Both Ugandans and foreigners, among them refugees, on the country’s territory by Thursday night will be counted.

 Mr Muwonge identified these to include persons who die by the Census Night since it would be presumed that they present at the clocking of the census period.

 “Those that will die on May 9, which is the Census Night, will be counted. They will be counted because they would have spent the Census Night in Uganda,” he added.

 Conversely, Ugandans who will be out of the country by the index date will not be counted, even if they return within the 10 days when enumeration will be ongoing, according to Ubos.

 Uganda, like most countries, conducts a National Housing and Population Census every decade in order to ascertain the number of its citizens.

 President Museveni in a recorded promotional video said the upcoming enumeration will help the government allocate resources and plan for corresponding levels of health, education and transport services.

 “As we work towards realising Uganda’s Vision 2040, it is important that we plan based on accurate information about our people and our resources,” he said,  “The information from the National Housing and Population Census will support the government, private sector, cultural and religious, civil society and development partners in service delivery.”

 The President exhorted Ugandans to cooperate with the enumerators and provide honest answers to enable them “process the most accurate information about you, your household, institutions and community”.

 “I, therefore, call upon all political, cultural and religious leaders, private sector players, civil society, the media and the institutions of government to support this key national programme,” he said, adding that a successful execution will accelerate Uganda’s socio-economic transformation.

According to the March 2024 National Housing and Population Census (NHPC) Enumerators’ Manual of Instructions and Computer-Assisted Personal Interviews (CAPI) User Guide, the guiding document for the enumeration, interviewees will, among other things, be required to provide biographical, economic and social information that speak to their welfare.

For instance, households will be asked about economic activities members are involved in, how much they earn and save, how much land and other resources they possess, and access to the government’s poverty alleviation programmes such as Parish Development Model.

Respondents will speak to their literacy rates by answering questions on levels of education attained by members of the household, who of them is out and school-going and where they study.

Enumerators will also count the number of mobile phone handsets and computers in a household, if any, and members’ access to Internet that should help determine mobile phone and Internet penetration in the country.

The census exercise will enable the government ascertain how far social services are from citizens, the means of transportation to the facilities and the quality of services offered.

There are more than a dozen questions on life and death, the latter likely to be emotional as enumerators will seek information on whether a household has lost a member in the year to May 9, their particulars, and the circumstances of the death.

Ubos officials are to collect similar data on births, although the agency told this publication last week that babies born on May 10 and onwards, even if within the census period, will not be counted because they would not have been present by the May 9 Census Night.

These questions including on the number of children per woman, officials said, are intended to determine the fertility rates and life expectancy, the latter currently being 63 years.

The statistics body’s Board chairman, Mr Albert Byamugisha, yesterday said the government had provided up to 98 percent of the Shs320 billion, a reversal of the pattern where donors mostly bankrolled past censuses.

 “We are very ready for the census exercise, the enumerators are being trained and by [tomorrow], the training will be done. Enumerators are already practicing how to use the tablets from sample households in their sub counties by entering in data and their supervisors correcting any errors so that they can perfect and … [make the] exercise a success,” he said.

 Enumerators, he noted, will be accompanied to households by Local Council I officials who know residents and are known to them.

About census law

    “Any person who (a) hinders or obstructs an authorised officer in the lawful performance of any duties or in lawful exercise of any power imposed or conferred on him or her under this Act; or (b) refuses or neglects (i) to complete and supply, within such time as may be specified for the purpose, the particulars required in any return, form or other document left with or sent to that person; (ii) to answer any question or inquiries put to or made of him or her, under this Act; (c) knowingly or negligently makes in any return, form or other document completed by him or her under this Act or in any answer to any question or enquiry put to or made of him or her under this Act, any statement which is untrue in any material particular, commits an offence and is liable on conviction, to a fine not exceeding thirty currency points or imprisonment not exceeding six months, or both.”

Section 29(3) of  Ubos Act, 1998