The Ellembelle District Assembly in the Western Region has inaugurated its Census Implementation Committee to oversee the conduct and implementation of the 2020 Population and Housing Census in the area.

The primary goal of the Census is to count each person and structure in the geographical space of Ghana.

The Census Night is slated for June 28, 2020.

The essence of forming the Committees across the country is to solicit the support of the District Assemblies and other relevant stakeholders of the local level for the successful implementation of the census.

The Ellembelle District Census Implementation Committee has Mr. Emil T. Atsu, District Coordinating Director as chairman with Mr. Isaac Polley, District Census Officer, Alex Damptey, District Information Officer and Mr. Peter Blay Ackah, District Education Director as members.

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

Inaugurating the eight-member committee at Nkroful, the District Chief Executive (DCE) for the area, Hon. Kwasi Bonzoh charged them to work hard to achieve their target.

He thanked the committee members for dedicating their precious time to work for the District to achieve a successful Census.

He urged them to liaise with the field officers to ensure every person in the Ellembelle District was counted.

The DCE also called on the people of Ellembelle District to cooperate with the field officers to be enumerated.

"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 optimistic that the data collected from the Census would help the Assembly to plan well and said it would help all the communities within his area.

"This exercise will help all of us so let us embrace it because the data collected from this exercise will be used to create more electoral areas, it will help us share the resources to benefit each Community in Ellembelle", he said.

Hon. Kwasi Bonzoh pledged the Assembly's commitment to resource the Information Department to sensitize the general 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 the exercise to be fruitful.

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 is Publicity, Advocacy and Education about the Census in the District from now till the end of the exercise.

This he believes will explain further and redirect any misconceptions about the Census.

He charged them to setup 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 also appeal to the people within the District to rally behind the Committee and the field officers and support them with the necessary information they would demand.

He was optimistic that at the end of the exercise, the population of Western Region would increase.

He concluded that, information to be collected on all persons will be treated confidentially.

The slogan for this year’s Population and Housing Census is "You count, get counted".