In an exclusive interview with The Point, Mr. Sanyang stated that compared with the past where it would take GBoS a minimum of 4 years before a data results is released, he said due to the introduction of the digitalisation, they are expecting to have the census results within three months, with an improved report compared with the past.
He indicated that GBoS is doing its best to ensure that the information reaches as they ensure that reports are produced as soon as possible.
“It was a long process during the traditional paper based census. We used to collect data from the paper where we would be editing it and then give it to the data entry clerk to enter and the data would go through a data editing and analysing processes,” he recalled.
To achieve these current objectives, Mr. Sanyang urged Gambians to welcome their enumerators to be able to have good data, saying good data helps government and development partners. He added that bad data affects the progress of a country.
Commenting on the state of the census, he said it has been ongoing well, with a lot of progress over the past week. He added that the entire census is expected to complete within three weeks.
According to Mr. Sanyang, GBoS is experiencing few challenges such as accessing homes of the elites. “It is difficult to access their homes. Some of them are not at home, and some of them have only their securities there. Others are there, but accessing them is a problem,” he said.
He, however, hailed the entire digitalisation, saying it is a great achievement that would contribute a lot towards improving the data collected. He expressed optimism that with the digitalisation, they would have better data compared with the past.
He urged the rural communities to be more cooperative in terms of giving information than the urban, due to the busy schedules of the urban settlers.
Another challenge he lamented is having some people to answer how many children they have as they consider it a taboo to reveal such.
“But we are trying to use all means of communication to sensitise them. However, there are people who would still be hard to reach as some of them won’t even have time for a radio or TV.
