Ssenyonyi (Right) receiving the census report from UBOS’ Muwonge
The Leader of Opposition, Joel Ssenyonyi has criticized the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) over the poor handling of the results of the 2024 national census, wondering why the public wasn’t alerted about the corrections made to the jumbled up data the Bureau had released, before recalling it up after the public cited inconsistencies in data released.
“You had promised us as UBOS that you will have the final report in December 2024 because the initial one had issues because you had uploaded it on your website, pulled it down, rectify what needed to be rectified, we waited for the unveil of the final report. Because your initial report met a lot of opposition in the public, because of errors, I thought when you were releasing your final report, the public needs to know, you need to launch it properly so that people who had gotten that wrong impression of you get that sorted out,” said Ssenyonyi.
The Leader of Opposition made his criticism during an oversight visit undertaken by the Shadow Cabinet at Statistics House, where he asked UBOS to ensure increased public sensitization on the corrections made to the census data.
He said, “So I think it isn’t adequate for it to just be quietly uploaded on your website, I thought that you do it in a more grand way than the initial one because you are making rectifications. Now, there are many people who don’t know there is a final report that made corrections. Corrections in my view should have been louder than the initial report which had errors. So that didn’t happen. So, there are people who still think you people aren’t serious and yet in my view, I think you do serious work.”
In his response, James Muwonge, Head Surveys at UBOS acknowledged that mistakes were made in the census data, but added that corrections were made as part of the fundamental principles of handling official statistics.
“It is true, there were a couple of errors. In statistics, one of the principles indicate that when you identify an error, and you acknowledge that it is an error, you are supposed to make it public. That is the fundamental principle of official statistics and so it was made public and corrections were made,” Muwonge said.
He also welcomed the LoP’s advice on increasing sensitization noting, “That is the process we are starting with, we are following the Roadmap and we had to make sure that by 31st December, the report is out. So, by 31st December, we had to upload it because that is per the roadmap. And next stage will be the roll out and thanks for the guidance, we have to give it a bi, we shall take it up.”
While responding to Ssenyonyi’s concerns over the discrepancies in data in special interest groups like the Persons with Disabilities, Muwonge attributed this to the confusion surrounding the definition of Person with Disabilities that UBOS adopted which was different from the definition used by activists in these groups.
“Regarding the Persons with Disabilities, we have clarified our position, and it wasn’t that there was an error, with the PWDs, it was their definition and the standards that we use. In our report, we have provided for all the standards,” explained Muwonge.
Ssenyonyi also questioned UBOS on the failure to fully pay the allowances of the enumerators noting, “After the census exercise, there were pointers, there were a couple of errors that we thought we would understand on behalf of the General public. There were errors, switching of results, many ethnic and tribal groupings were complaining, which errors were eventually acknowledged by yourselves in fact they said a number of them, you didn’t bother to reach out to them and yet they are citizens.”
Muwonge replied, “Yes at one time there were enumerators who hadn’t been paid and there were reasons, I think we had paid almost 99% and there were about 1% not paid. It is true they worked and they deserved to be paid, and the reasons that led to non-payment were genuine and sometimes required time to cross check.”
