This year’s census is the most expensive and biggest, raising eyebrows over the billions the agency wants to spend in the exercise lasting a week.
Already Sh18.5 billion has been earmarked for the census to be conducted by about 200,000 staff over seven days. According to KNBS director general Zachary Mwangi,most of the expenses will go towards paying personnel as well as acquiring more than 160,000 digital devices.
Despite the growing political contestations over the exercise and delayed procurement of the material,Mwangi said they were on course.
“Everything in the preparatory stage is on course and the rest of the plans,” he said.
He said they are in a pre-enumeration stage of the census with cartographic mapping of villages in all the 47 counties, with piloting in 12 counties already done.
The procurement of equipment,he said, will be completed by Mayand by July hiring and training of personnel should have been concluded.
The next stage will be the real enumeration, or the census night,which is the actual counting in the month of August.
“The last stage will be post-enumeration where we compile the data, analyse then release the result,”Mwangi said.
The previous census was manual- where data was captured through paper questionnaires, scanned and then sent for tabulation. This year’s Sh18.5 billion exercise will use mobile technology.
“This will be a paperless exercise. Although we won’t use biometric data capture, we will have mobile devices that will be used for data collection. The captured data will be transmitted to a central server for analysing and processing,” Mwangi said.
The digital process will help eliminate errors associated with physical human data entry from questionnaires into the computers,he said.
“The census is good for getting the accurate numbers and good quality data is key in enabling sound planning for better appropriation of resources to address the needs of fellow countrymen,” he added.
Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission is expected to use the same data to review or vary constituencies.
The law requires delimitation of boundaries to be conducted a year before the General Election.
The Constitution caps the number of constituencies at 290, but the IEBC can review to either alter the name or boundaries of existing constituencies.
It is will be the second review since 2010 by the Andrew Ligale-led Boundaries Review Commission.
Some constituencies without adequate population are likely to be eliminated.
The constituencies protected during the last boundary review are Lamu East, Lamu West, Mvita, Mwatate, Wundanyi, Voi, Bura, Galole, Isiolo South, Kilome, Laisamis, North Horr, Saku, Siakago (now Mbeere North), Ndaragwa, Tetu, Murkurweini, Othaya and Kangema.