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Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kwabena Anim, has bemoaned the challenges which are likely to stampede the smooth operation of the 2021 population census.

According to the Government Statistician, the two weeks exercise which starts from Monday, 28th June 2021 and ends on July 11, 2021 is confronted with a few challenges as some Ghanaians are preventing the enumerators from doing their work.

Speaking on Okay FM’s 'Ade Akye Abia' Morning Show, Professor Kwabena Anim disclosed that his team has managed to resolve many of the challenges except in a few places which have to do with conflict and disputes.

“ . . we are left with some few places that we are hoping to resolve within one or two days. We are in talks with some leaders in those places to resolve the issues. The issues are different per places, because at some places, it has to do with conflict, and so we are engaging with the security agencies to make sure that both our respondents and enumerators are safe,” he indicated.

He was concerned with the possibility that if the situation is not resolved before the exercise, it can escalate whatever conflict that exists in those places; hence, they are counting on the security agencies to provide a way out in order to have a successful census.

Another challenge, he said has to do with a boundary dispute, citing Upper East Region as a major challenge they have to deal with; thus, they have referred the case to the Local Government Minister, Dan Botwe to find a solution to it so that the 2021 population census will take place in that region.

He again mentioned another challenge in Greater Accra region where some people in the elite places are refusing to let the exercise take place with the excuse that they don’t see the need to take part in the population census.

He added that they are still in talks with them to get them to participate in the exercise.

Professor Samuel Kwabena Anim, therefore, pleaded with the people of the Upper East Region with the boundary dispute to allow the exercise to take place in those areas so as to move the people from one area to another area after they have resolved their dispute.

He, however, feared that, "if they don’t allow our enumerators to count them, it will take another 10 years to count those who would not be able to join in the 2021 population census”.