An-Eight-Member Census Implementation Committee to exercise oversight responsibility on the conduct and implementation of the 2020 Population and Housing Census (PHC) has been inaugurated in the Ellembelle District.

It has Mr. Emil T. Atsu, the District Coordinating Director, as the chairman, with Mr. Isaac Polley, District Census Officer, Mr. Alex Damptey, District Information Officer and Mr. Peter Blay Ackah, District Director of Education as members.

The rest are Dr. Miriam Oko-Wusu, District Health Director, Nana Akye Blay, Traditional Council representative, Mr. Francis Boampong, District Director of National Commission on Civic Education (NCCE) and Mrs Patience Etuah, District Statistician.

The Census Night which is slated for 28 June 2020, is to count each person and structure the geographical space of Ghana.

Inaugurating the eight-member committee at Nkroful, the District Chief Executive (DCE) Mr. Kwasi Bonzo thanked the committee for their commitment to the task and charged them to work hard to achieve their target.

He urged them to liaise with the field officers and appealed to the indigenes of Ellembelle to ensure that every person in the District was counted.

"I will appeal to the good people of Ellembelle District to support the Committee and the field officers and I will also urge the field officers to count everybody because ten years ago I was not counted," he emphasized.

He, therefore, expressed optimism that the data collected from the Census would help the Assembly to plan well adding, it would help all the communities within the area.

Mr. Bonzoh pledged the Assembly's commitment to resource the Information Department to sensitize the public about the exercise.

On his part, Mr. Ernest Nyarku, the Western Regional Statistician, expressed his profound gratitude for the Assembly's readiness to support to ensure the success of the exercise.

Mr. Nyarku, therefore, tasked the committee to engage and solicit the support of all stakeholders within the District to ensure a successful implementation of the Census.

He said given all the needed resources, the most vital drive was publicity, advocacy and education about the Census in the District from now till the end of the exercise, which will explain further and redirect any misconceptions about the Census.

He charged them to set up a publicity/advocacy/education sub-committee to sensitize, educate and mobilize all persons to co-operate fully in the census operations in the District.

Speaking on the importance of the 2020 PHC data, Mr. Ernest Nyarku said the data on population and socio-economic characteristics, such as age, sex, educational attainment, employment among others would assist the district assembly in the allocation of resources and distribution of social services such as health and educational facilities if only credible and quality data was collected by field officers.

He was optimistic that at the end of the exercise, the population of Western Region would increase, and assured the people that information gathered from them would be treated with confidentiality.