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Kenyan Digest

Government rules out extension of census exercise

2 min read
Published 31 August 2019

The 2019 Kenya population and housing census will conclude Saturday 31st of August 2019. 

The government has ruled out extension of the exercise announcing that so far, its has been able to reach out to at least ninety five percent of Kenyans. 

Principal Secretary for State Department of Planning, Saitoti Torome, who addressed the press Saturday morning is hopeful that the remaining five percent will be reached in the remaining hours. 

He says enumerators are currently covering places that they were not able to reach at the initial stages of the exercise that has been conducted for a week. 

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Despite the government giving the exercise a clean bill of health, a number of challenges have been faced. 

Several people have been arrested and charged in court for going against the laid down census rules.

Meanwhile, Isiolo South elders have called for the extension of the exercise, saying it was poorly conducted in the constituency. 

They called for additional resources in order to ensure justice for the local populace. 

Led by former Isiolo County assembly speaker, Mohamed Tupi, the elders lamented that the area has always been perceived to harbour a small number of people since previous census exercises were conducted haphazardly, and did not, therefore, reflect the real situation on the ground. 

He said that census enumerators and supervisors in Isiolo County were not accorded adequate support to conduct the exercise in a pastoral set- up and could therefore not be expected to come up with credible statistics.

Tupi noted that residents in at least ten centers between Garbatula and Eldera township which lies along the Isiolo-Garissa border were not enumerated owing to the insecurity and mobility challenges. 

Tupi called upon the government to consider extending the exercise by at least three more days and deploy additional resources in terms of enumerators, security personnel and vehicles.