MONTSERRADO COUNTY – The Vice President of the Republic of Liberia, Chief Jewel Howard Taylor, on Monday, November 21, visited the offices of the Liberia Institute for Statistics and Geo-information Services (LISGIS) to acquaint herself with progress and challenges confronting the ongoing National Population and Housing Census.
During her stay, she presided over a meeting of stakeholders, which included the Ambassador of the European Union to Liberia Laurent Delahousse, Finance, and Development Planning Minister Samuel Tweah – who chairs the board of LISGIS – as well as other heads of international organizations.
The Vice President used the occasion to emphasize the importance of the Census exercise while urging everyone to participate and get counted, describing the process as a national endeavor. On behalf of President George M. Weah, she thanked all those contributing to the success of the exercise, particularly the thousands of enumerators.
The Vice President was given updates by the Census Technical Committee on statistics coming in from the field. The committee highlighted challenges with payment of the remaining enumerators, who they said had incorrect mobile money numbers. They lamented how this was posing a major difficulty with deployment in some areas.
VP Taylor then urged LISGIS and its implementing partners to make sure that all enumerators are paid in order to avoid further delay to the census exercise. She suggested a small extension of the December 2 end date to afford enumerators adequate time to collect data.
The Vice President has also recommended that the publicity team work with various media outlets to spread positive messages about the census, as well as give frequent updates to the public about progress being made.
