Ongwediva
The Namibia Statistics Agency’s (NSA) combined Namibia Intercensal Demographic (NID) and Labour Force (LF) survey successfully kicked off yesterday, Statistician-General Alex Shimuafeni told a press briefing at Ongwediva.
By Sunday NSA had successfully deployed all its field workers in all 13 regions in exception of Otjozondjupa Region, which only managed to deploy field teams yesterday morning due to some minor hiccups.
According to Shimuafeni, 491 staff are already in the field listing all households in the geographical areas as identified by NSA.
The number of households to be interviewed will thus be sampled from the listing.
The combined survey will cover 12 480 households countrywide, which represents 2.7 percent of the total private households countrywide.
Khomas Region has the highest household population of 1 380 for the survey, followed by Erongo Region. The two Kavango regions have the lowest number of household populations for the survey.
The listing process kicked off yesterday and will run until October 28.
“The sampling will then be done and enumeration will commence on October 31 right through to November 11,” said project manager Ottilie Mwazi.
October 30 will be used as a reference night and the nation is urged to comply with the enumerators as they visit their homes.
Shimuafeni said an act makes provision for those who refuse to comply with the survey to be prosecuted and be compelled to a N$50 000 fine, alternatively five years imprisonment – however “we do not want to go that route, hence our appeal to the community to comply.”
The project manager Mwazi said the enumerators will be operating between five in the morning and nine in the evening and he hence appealed to the nation to inform enumerators of the suitable time to visit their homes if busy.
The project manager further said NSA has made provision for people to be interviewed in languages they understand best.
In addition, Mwazi assured the nation that their information would be treated confidentially.
“The information will be captured immediately on a tablet and in an event the tablet is lost, such tablets can only be accessed by NSA staff,” communication specialist at NSA Nelson Ashipala added.
A resident of Okandjengedi in the Oshana Region, Laimi Amulungu, whose house was visited by the NSA team, said she was happy with the process.
“It is good that a survey as such is presented in one’s vernacular language because it also allows one to give correct information as is needed,” said Amulungu.
The LF survey findings will be presented in March next year while NID findings will be presented in September the same year and will be disseminated to all 14 regions.
The combined survey provides jobs to 419 youths countrywide.