The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) on Thursday rejected claims by the Coalition of Muslim Organisations that the final figures of the 2000 Population and Housing Census were not correct.

Dr Kweku A. Twum-Baah, Acting Government Statistician, told the Ghana News Agency in Accra on Thursday that the coalition had no basis to reject the figures.

The coalition said at a news conference on Wednesday that Ghana's population of 18.8 million was incorrect and should be about 21 million. Also, the Muslim population was more than the 15 per cent the Ghana Statistical Service had put across.

The GSS said it was impossible and erroneous for the country to have a population of 21.3 million. "This implies that Ghana's population has been growing at about three per cent per annum. But the situation on the ground does not reflect what they are saying."

The 2000 Population and Housing Census put Ghana's population growth rate at 2.6 per cent, the lowest in Africa and projected that if the growth pattern continued to decline, "Ghana's population is likely to reach a number less than 24 million in 2010."

Fertility rate since the last census (1984) has dropped from 4.5 per cent to 2.4 per cent in the 2000 census.

Dr Twun-Baah said: "It is very misleading for a group on their own accord to come out to reject a whole national exercise without recourse to any scientific basis. "It is unfortunate that anyone will think that the Ghana Statistical Service will deliberately do anything to justify the claims of the coalition. If the group is claiming that Muslims number 45 per cent, they should tell us, 45 per cent of what sample size?"

He expressed concern about the slant given to the claim, saying "it does not augur well for the smooth development of the country and the continued co-existence of Muslims and other religions."

The coalition on Wednesday claimed Muslim population was 45 per cent of the population and "vehemently disputes the census figures, especially those regarding the population in terms of distribution of religion."

Dr Twum-Baah said the GSS had never done any census work with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and had no idea where the 45 per cent the coalition quoted on the CIA website emanated from.

He asked the coalition to provide a comprehensive scientific evidence for its claim, adding that the reference to a previous census or statistical data quoting a higher figure was wrong since there was no census figure on Muslims in the 1984 census. "The last one with figures on the Muslim population was the 1969 census."