By Josephine Maseruka
The State minister for agriculture, Dr. Kibirige Ssebunya, turned the heat on the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) officials when he challenged them to explain the authenticity of the recently declared National Census results when he was not counted.

“I was one of the cabinet ministers who vehemently argued that the National Census day be declared a public holiday. I sat at home and I saw no one to count me, my many chicken, goats, beans, maize, sweet potatoes amongst others.

For three days, no one came to count me. I went to the local council officials who feigned ignorance about the exercise and I was never counted. If you failed to count a man like Dr. Kibirige Ssebunya, the minister of agriculture, then whom did you count?” he asked.
“When I heard UBOS declaring the census results, I knew this was fake and I want you to tell me now who is not doing his work.”

Ssebunya was addressing participants at a National Agricultural Statistical System workshop at the International Conference centre.

The workshop was attended by staff from the Ministry of Agriculture, Finance, NGOs, UBOS and delegates from Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Mozambique and Norway.

The workshop, on building partnerships for statistical development, was organised by UBOS as one of the events to mark the Africa Statistics week celebrations.

Ssebunya criticised his ministry officials who were absent and those came in very late. When he demanded to know how many of his officials were around, only six raised their hands.

Ssebunya refused to officially open the workshop before the officials explained to him why the Ministry of Agriculture was using statistics of 1965 yet FAO and the government funded the 1990 Agriculture Census whose results have never been published.

The officials said the funds were delayed and were not adequate to conduct an authentic Agriculture Census.

Kibirige said government should establish a permanent system of collecting and disseminating food and agriculture statistics.
Ends