Editorial | Census cock-up

There are few cock-ups in the management and administration of public policy in Jamaica in recent decades bigger than the taking of the island’s current census.

In preparation long before then, the consensus has been going on for a year-and-a-half. Yet, no one seems clear when, or if, it will end. Neither does it appear that anyone is being held accountable.

But for the more than J$4 billion of taxpayers’ money already spent on the exercise since 2021/22 fiscal year, this newspaper is tempted to suggest that the current effort be abandoned, a serious evaluation if its failures takes place and the process started anew in a year or two. We would recommend, too, that the authorities attempt to resurrect Quirinius and appoint the ancient governor of Syria consultant to the project. If he could bring people (including supposedly Mary and Joseph) back to their home provinces to be counted, he might have an idea or two on how to get census-takers past the guards at Jamaica’s gated communities.

The next best thing, perhaps, is to muddle along with the current exercise and salvage as much from it as possible. The timetable for the next census should be radically brought forward.

The taking of censuses, usually every decade, is an important exercise for governments. It helps them to know many people reside in the country, where they live, the quality of their homes and other critical demographic information, including people’s education and services they enjoy or need. Put another way, censuses, and the precision of the information gleaned therefrom, are important tools in the formation of public policy.

WEAKNESS IN POLICY

Indeed, Mike Henry, the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) parliamentarian and former minister, used to claim that a significant weakness in policy in Jamaica was the inadequacy of demographic data. We weren’t counting the population often enough.

Jamaica’s previous census – the 14th – was conducted in 2011, when it was determined that 2,697,983 people lived on the island. There were 881,078 households, accommodating 99.2 per cent of the population.

The last one should have been taken in 2021. Planning for it should have started by demographic experts at the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN), the government’s prime data-gathering agency, long before the deadline.

Unfortunately (some might claim fortuitously given how things have unfolded), the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic caused a delay in the census. It eventually began in September 2022. Field work was supposed to last four months.

In the 2021/22 fiscal year, as the preparatory work was under way, Parliament voted J$1.032 for the project. In 2022/23, it approved a further J$1.82 billion. For the fiscal year that is now concluding, J$1.46 billion was approved. In the estimates for 2024/25, J$116.2 million was budgeted for the project, clearly indicating that it is supposed to be in its winding down/conclusion phase.

But the whole thing, however, is, at best, murky.

In the Budget Debate a fortnight ago, the finance minister, Nigel Clarke, said that “face-to-face data collection by contracted census workers” was extended to last December, for reasons ranging from difficulty in recruiting staff – a tight labour market was partly blamed for this – to initial disgruntlement over pay, a proliferation of gated communities, to which entry is difficult, people’s concern with privacy, and the retirement and/or resignation of key staff at STATIN.

Carol Coy, the director general of STATIN, also suggested that the problems were compounded by the quality of recruits for the job. “Some persons failed the minimum training requirements,” she said on Thursday, highlighting deeper problems with Jamaica’s education system, how this impacts its labour market and what that portends for any transitioning from a low-wage, low-technology economy.

ADJUSTMENTS

Many of the problems faced by Jamaica, Dr Clarke said, confronted census projects in Latin America and elsewhere. Jamaica, and presumably others, was forced to make adjustments to its processes that the minister said will cause “data loss”, or, as Ms Coy put it at a press conference on Thursday, “introduce certain limitations on the use of the data”.

“Certain indicators will no longer be available at the ED (enumeration districts) or community levels,” Ms Coy said. “However, it is a necessary compromise as we seek to preserve the most important aspects of the census.”

Thus far, it is not clear what information is being forgone and the likely impact of this on policymaking. What specific gaps exist is the data already collected is unknown.

Julian Robinson, the shadow finance minister, claimed in Parliament that “with two-thirds of the population remaining to be counted” there was no deadline for the job to be completed. On Thursday STATIN officials didn’t frontally respond to Mr Robinson’s assertion. This would be determined by the ongoing processing of data from 70 per cent of the enumeration districts.

Even as the STATIN officials were explaining their problems, contracted census staff were complaining of the same issues over which they were peeved a half-year ago: the difficulty in getting paid for the work they do.

Among the reasons Ms Coy highlighted in attracting staff was a disinclination “to take up strenuous and short-term data collection” when other opportunities were there. That would have been exacerbated by frustrations over not being paid on time.

The bottom line: this census has been a fiasco. While COVID-19 contributed, it was not the only, and maybe not the primary culprit. Management failures and weak emotional intelligence played a part.

We, in a Jamaican phrase, should wheel and come again.