Census exercise suffers software setback
The start of field work for the BVI’s 2023 Population and Housing Census exercise has encountered a delay and is now expected to kick off sometime next week after it was initially expected to start yesterday, June 15.
A brief bulletin issued by the government yesterday said the field work for the census scheduled to begin on June 15 will be delayed and that enumerators will be mobilised as soon as possible. However, the notice did not give any reasons for the delay.
Director of the Central Statistics Office (CSO), Raymond Phillips, disclosed on ZBVI Radio that the delay was related to software challenges that his office was facing.
“It’s a software that we have to include along with the questionnaire and it’s not ready as yet for us to use,” Phillips explained.
He expressed that once the software is ready, it will take a day or two to be uploaded to tablets which will then allow the enumerators to begin the field exercise around Wednesday of next week.
The CSO Director further explained that not all of his enumerators will be going into the field early next week and said some persons will have to be reached by email to distribute questionnaires.
“That does not require persons going to them so we hope to get some of those out, if not today, tomorrow. So, even though the actual field work would not have begun, we still would have started the process,” Phillips said.
He urged persons to cooperate with enumerators who he expressed will be clearly identified by name tags and CSO logos, among other things.
Philips said his office has the full cadre of enumerators needed to conduct the exercise and indicated that the bulk of the work will be done on weekends and in the evenings when persons are expected to be home.
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Mr Phillips has only had 8 years to get ready for this – in the circumstances it is not surprising that there are some last minute delays.
This man is so incompetent I don’t know why he is still there.
This department always have an excuse why its planned actions cannot happened on time. Is the leader a Peter Principled candidate? Is it time for a shake up and perhaps a little creative destruction ? The constant delays make census data almost useless when does be belatedly comes out.
Its the BVI. Nothing ever starts on time. They have only had 14 years to get it right. Why no test programme beforehand? Phillips sounded very nervous and unsure of himself.
If you can’t blame the Brits, Sargassum, or people starting fires, blame the computer.
How can we get the form sent to us through email instead? It will save the Departmments lots of time
Blaming the software when it’s just the people can’t understand how to use it.