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Assistant Chief Statistician at the Ghana Statistical Service, Johnson Owusu Kagya, has admitted that the service couldn’t count all Ghanaians during the 2020 population census.
Mr. Owusu Kagya made the disclosure in an interview with Kofi Adoma Nwanwani on Angel FM’s Anɔpa Bɔfoɔ Morning show.
According to the statistician, who doubles as the Acting Director for the Communication and Dissemination Directorate (CDD), the people who could not be counted are in the minority and that would not have a major impact on the current figure.
“The truth is that it is impossible to count every single individual in any given population census. You can’t get everyone…,” he said in response to claims by some Ghanaians that they were not counted during the exercise.
He was quick to add that the GSS made frantic efforts to capture all persons.
“In some of our media interactions, some people phoned in to say that even if the president comes to enumerate them, they’ll not yield to his demands. There are also some people who genuinely may be unavailable to be enumerated because such individuals leave home at dawn for work only to return late at night,” he said.
In order to deal with this challenge, the service had to extend the number of days for counting.
“For example, in areas like Ga West, Ga North and Kpone Katamanso, we made extensions to about one month as a measure to cover everyone”.
Prior to the census, the projected population according to the GSS was 31.6million based on certain parameters such as the growth rate which was pegged at 2.5% for Ghana.
However, at the end of the census, available data shows that the new growth rate is 2.1% as opposed to the projected 2.5%.
Mr. Kagya explained that this means the country’s growth rate has slowed and is particular good for the nation with respect to the state of Ghana’s economy.
The population of the country currently stands at 30.8million, which includes both Ghanaians and foreigners, who are living in Ghana.
