Persons with Disability call for extension of Census by two weeks

It also urged the Government to improve on the questionnaires used for the exercise to appropriately capture all Persons Living With Disability (PWDs).

The group, in a statement issued and copied to the Ghana News Agency in Accra, said it feared PWDs may be undercounted if the exercise was not extended by two more weeks.

It said in the last decade or so, almost all global and national development agenda had consciously talked for inclusivity of all persons- particularly the vulnerable and PWDs, leading to the phrase “leaving no one behind.”

That clarion call, the group said, had emphasised the need for nations, and for that matter Ghana, to consciously undertake the age-long recommendation of decennial Population and Housing Census with gaps and as a constitutional responsibility of the Government of Ghana.

“The Concerned Persons with Disability is not oblivious to the importance of census to every nation like ours- it helps in public policy, development and knowledge of the number of persons that reside in the country at a given time.

“In other words, wrong data collection, limited time to which exercise is being conducted etc, all have a major implications on the outcome of the exercise. The consequences may be that, you may not achieve the intended purpose of the exercise and all of that,” the statement said.

It, therefore, noted that given the limited time, it was imperative that, Government strongly considered extending the exercise by some two weeks and improve on the questionnaire, to enable it capture PWDs who had not been enumerated.

“We also want to alert you that, PWDs who have been counted by enumerators also ask irrelevant questions. For example, the enumerators may see a person with disabilities and ask him or her whether she can see, can walk, can bath herself, can eat herself etc. These questions with regards to PWDs are not appropriate.

“They don’t capture the various category of persons with disabilities in the country, such as physically Disabled, Blind and partially sighted, Deaf, persons with Albinism, Cerebral Palsy, Down Syndrome and Little people etc,” it said.

The Statistical Service Act 2019 (Act 1003) empowers the Government statistician to conduct statistical surveys and any census in Ghana.

The Service, officially ended the 2021 PHC on Sunday July 11, 2021, but announced a week’s mop up for areas defined as large.