GET JOBS THROUGH CENSUS, MUSOKOTWANE URGES YOUTHS.
By Fanny Kalonda
FINANCE minister Situmbeko Musokotwane has called on young people to apply for jobs through the 2022 population census.
Flagging off the 2022 Census process yesterday, Dr Musokotwane urged members of parliament and district commissioners to disseminate the availability of the positions of enumerators on the census process.
He said census is vital as it would allow the government not to be acting blindly but have information to guide where to take development in the country.
“Cabinet decided that where possible, please recruit in the locality, recruit the enumerators and others in the locality. If you cannot find the appropriate people, that is understandable. But for the basic tasks…so that we send the benefits to every corner of the country. Every corner of the country must benefit. Looking also here, I can see that certain minimum levels of competence will be required. I can see that very clearly, clearly if someone cannot read English, they will not be effective in enumerators. Inasmuch as I say recruit everyone in the country, you are being guided on the minimum requirement, but competence is very important. Let’s ride on the technology to inform the youths on the job opportunities available. Let’s make sure that they don’t lose out,” he said. “It is beyond counting the human beings. It is also finding out certain information about ourselves. How many females, males, what kind of dwelling do they live in. Where is the nearest water point? Where is the nearest school? Where is the nearest clinic? It is finding out a lot of things about livelihoods. That’s why you heard them say, we are doing this because it is important for the planning purposes. It’s very important for the planning purposes. How do you determine where should be a school? How do you determine where you need to build a clinic? How do you determine where you need to put a water point, a borehole? In the absence of information, you end up putting schools where the population is low. And therefore the school would be a white elephant and then the ones that are heavily populated, you leave them out…”
Dr Musokotwane urged MPs, chiefs, headmen, religious leaders and other stakeholders to disseminate information to the people on the census.
“This census takes place between the 18th August and 14 of September as you heard there will be a lot of information sharing. And please do your level best. This is why I asked my colleague here, the Minister of Information and Media [Chushi Kasanda] to come here because unless she understands and appreciates what we are doing, then use her facilities and infrastructure status to help disseminate this, then we will miss the point,” said Dr Musokotwane.
And Kasanda encouraged Zambians to cooperate.
Kasanda also asked the media to cooperate and play a role on sensitising people on the census.
Zambia Statistics Agency interim statistician general Mulenga Musepa said 500 motor bikes have been procured of which 100 were procured in 2020.
“In terms of procurement, we had budgeted for 50 vehicles. We have managed to procure 44 vehicles. We had even gone to beg UNFPA because we didn’t have enough money because they usually get their vehicles at a discounted rates and as a result we saved close to US $800,000 through procurement,” said Musepa. “We have also procured 30,000 Samsung tablets. This is in addition to the 15,900 tablets which we borrowed through UNFPA which were used in Malawi…we have also got 35,000 power banks. These are solar powered – hybrid power banks which in mostly remote parts of the country our enumerators can use solar to charge the power banks and charge the batteries when there is no power. We have procured 17,610 bicycles, 4,610 were procured as a gift from UNFPA and these are the ones we are basically taking out.”