Pinda launches 2012 census campaign

By FRANK KIMARO 

Tanzanians have been urged to take part in the forthcoming census exercise which has been described as unique feature in the development plans of the country.

The Prime Minister Mr. Mizengo Pinda made the remarks when launching the campaign on population and housing census 2012, at Mnanzi mmoja grounds in Dar es Salaam yesterday.

The premier said that the census will kick off on the night of 25^th August through 26^th this year.

He further explained that the information to be be collected through this census will be used by the government and other institutions in the country as well as the international organizations, business community and the public in general for various development activities

The data collected will be used for national policies and making decision base on people’s needs.

The premier mentioned that this year census is of unique significance because the information collected will be used to make a follow up and evaluate implementation of the national vision on development of 2025 for the main land Tanzania and 2020 for Tanzania Zanzibar.

The same information will help to evaluate the national strategy for poverty eradication strategy in Tanzania (MKUKUTA) and MKUZA for Zanzibar.

He further added that such information was crucial in evaluating the MDG`s in 2015 and the National Development Plan for five years from 2011 to 2016.Mr. Pinda said that the census exercise had no relationship whatsoever with any religious beliefs of the people or their political ideology.

“every citizen should participate in the census contrary to that it tantamount to undermining the government and causing immense loss to the nation since, this was tax payers money.The premier quoted the father of the nation Mwl. Julius Nyerere who had said that the people were important human resource for the nation and through the census it is where you can establish the magnitude and condition of the wealth.

Dar es Salaam Regional Commissioner (RC), Mr Saidi Meck Sadiki, said the people should ignore those persuading them to neglect the exercise, saying such leaders have their own secret agenda which has no public interest.“This exercise does not aim to get the number of Muslims to build mosques but statistics are for development plans to improve the people’s lives,” he said.   

In remarks, Population and Housing Census Commissioner, Hajat Amina Said, urged the people to provide the census clerks with accurate information and that their information would be confidential only to be used for the development plans.