National Statistician confident the census operation will pick up momentum despite a slow start

The prolonged 2024 Population Census currently underway is set to pickup momentum despite a slow start, says National Statistician John Igitoi.

Mr Igitoi said it was expected that the country wide census operation would begin on such note but assured that things will ramp up as the event unfolds.

"It normally starts slow," Mr Igitoi said.

"So, we also have a dashboard, and we should be able to monitor the momentum picking up every day.

"So, it's a start, and it's always slow but we're expecting that this thing should pick up."

Mr Igitoi confirmed yesterday [Sunday] during a media briefing that the mobile tablets used for data collection have been distributed to all the provinces as of Sunday.

He said the tablets procured would fast track data collection in each of the provinces and complete the census operation as per the timeframe.

"As of today [Sunday], all the tablets have gone to the provinces," the National Statistician said.

"Some of them are still going to the destination, so they have been posted.

"It goes by the province, district, LLG, and the ward. And in the ward, there are villages.

"In this village, we call them enumeration areas. So, tablets go by enumeration areas.

"We've got the details of every village in Papua New Guinea, so that's why these tablets are going to those locations."

Igitoi was confident that the census will be pulled off in time despite the posing challenges.

Six generic questions will be asked during the interviews that will be carried out over the 14-day period.