Homeless people to be counted - UBOS

By Pascal Kwesiga

THE Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) has said ‘homeless people’ will be counted on the streets.

According to the UBOS executive director, Dr. Ben Mungyereza, there are special teams that have been constituted to count 'homeless' individuals.

“We have put in place special teams to count people who are homeless. They will be moving around towns looking for these people on streets,” he said.

The much anticipated National Population and Housing census kicked off on Thursday across the country.

The exercise that ends on September 6 should have taken place in 2012, ten years after the previous one that was held in 2002.

According to the state minister for finance in charge of planning, Matia Kasaija, the enumeration exercise was postponed to 2014 due to lack of funds.

“Even finding money for this exercise in 2014 has not been easy. Some said people will not die because they have not been counted. I told them they will actually die because we cannot plan for them when we do not know their number,” Kasaija said.

The government allocated sh200b for the census activities.