SOME DCS RESPONSIBILE FOR CENSUS KERFUFFLE
The Scoop Editorial: August 16, 2022
IT IS common knowledge that the recruitment exercise for those to conduct the National Census of Population and Housing, which is a very important undertaking, has been marred with chaos in most places and left a sour taste in the mouths of most Zambians, more so, those who applied.
This is evidenced by the number of individuals, interest groups, including Members of Parliament (MPs), who have raised various concerns on how the process was done, with some demanding that it be declared null and void and be redone so that deserving candidates are recruited.
The census of populaton and housing is designed to collect a complete count of households, dejure and defacto population.
A census of population and housing is the biggest national resource that acts both as an input into development programmes, and as a measure of the impact of various development programmes embarked on by Governments, NGOs and other stakeholders with development programmes in Zambia.
It provides a vital account of the impact of developmental programmes on the population in areas of education, health, economic activity, agriculture, housing and infrastructure, internal and international migration, urbanisation, fertility, mortality and population growth, size, composition and distribution.
It also provides an accurate and reliable record of changes in these important population attributes over time and forms the cornerstone of the country’s national statistical system.
This is how important this exercise is. We know that a lot of teething challenges were noted in the preliminaries over this but we feel some District Commissioners (DCs) have added another dimension to this madness as a lot of fingers have been pointed to them as having sabotaged the process by purposefully adding people they wanted. In some instances, we understand that names of people who never even sat for exams were sneaked onto the final lists and this call has been loud across the country, with districts like Livingstone leading the fanfare.
In Western Province, it was the same issue in some districts and so was the Copperbelt and the Northen half of the country. In short, there is no province or district where such confusion and complaints were not registered and this must be a source of worry to all citizens who mean well for this country.
This is not the first time we are having a recruitment. We had massive recruitments by Government not long ago. Of course in any of these, there are casualties but we never had these complaints of corruption, nepotism, and unfair treatment of those who sought these jobs like the case is with census, and like they say, there can be no smoke without fire.
If all was well, we would not have been getting reports in Mazabuka, for example, that people who attempted to seek audience with the DC after they were left out and wanted to air their misgivings over how the recruitment process was conducted, had police officers unleashed on them, with some of them allegedly arrested. If you have done your job diligently, why should you use the police on defenceless young people who are just expressing their concerns over the process which left them out?
If students from UNZA can march to State House to express their grievances and are peacefully escorted back to their compass without anyone of them being harassed by police or getting arrested, why shouldn’t citizens at district level do the same? Why do some of these DCs think they are untouchable that each time members of the public air their views, are threatened with being arrested, if elected leaders allow divergent views from the people who elected them? Why should a DC with clean hands hide behind the police when the public demand for answers if they have nothing to hide? Why should they treat public offices like their private homes? Why do they act like they are now semi-gods who cannot be questioned? We don’t get it!
We don’t think we will be asking for too much if we demand that some DCs be thoroughly investigated over this matter because the corruption chorus over the cencus recruitment process has been too loud and clear to be ignored. We need sanity in these offices.
Immorality, either perceived or real, erodes public confidence and when this discord is allowed to form the main fabric of society, then service delivery becomes suffers and ultimately, the Central Government is seen to be in bad light. If truly these allegations have any aorta of truth in them, some of these DCs must be dealt with if our fight against corruption is to be won.
All we are asking for from those sitting in these offices as appointed by the authority, is to tow the line of those who appointed them and not advance personal interests. We are all Zambians and when opportunities come, the playing field must be levelled just like we saw during the recruitment of teachers and those in the health sector.
Please DCs, days of corruption and intimidation of citizens are long gone. Do not take us back to Egypt when we have already crossed into Canaan and are giving testimonies about what we went through while in exile!