MASAKA, May 13, 2024 – Census officials in Masaka district are being challenged as they take fishermen on the landing sites through the enumeration process following a rise in the water levels of Lake Victoria.
The Uganda Bureau of Statistics [UBOS] has been carrying out the National Population Census 2024 countrywide since May 10, 2024, however, due to the torrential rains that have pounded the East African region, Lake Victoria has witnessed a rise in the water levels, destroying houses at the landing sites of Namirembe, Lambu, and Kachanga among others forcing families to seek refuge on the mainland.
Masaka District Planner, Vincent Lukyamuzi Sande who doubles as the District Census Officer said floods have displaced many people from the landing sites, leaving behind submerged houses.
In the last census of 2014, Masaka district had a total population of 184.600 people but when Masaka City was carved off from the district in 2021, it remained with an estimated population of 128.700 but since then, the number has been increasing.
Lukyamuzi said Masaka district remained with four rural subcounties of Bukakata, Buwunga, Kyesiiga and Kyanamukaka, all in the shores of Lake Victoria where majority families whose houses have been submerged by the floods cannot undergo the enumeration process since they have scattered to safer places.
“We want to count these people displaced by floods so that we establish the real number that government wants to include in programmes like Emyooga, the Parish Development Model [PDM] and Youth Livelihood Programme [YLP] so that their lives can be transformed,” he said.
Since last week, many people affected by floods at the lake shores are continuing to relocate, a serious factor which is however affecting the enumeration exercise.
Meanwhile, Lukyamuzi revealed that UBOS has increased the facilitation fees from Shs 20, 000 to Shs 30, 000 for every individual enumerator working in the hard-to-reach areas like the landing sites affected by floods.
Some families that moved from the shores of Lake Victoria have been found by some enumerators clearing the bushes on the mainland to construct make-shift houses.
Masaka Deputy Resident District Commissioner, John Bosco Lubyayi said over 5,000 families from various landing sites in the district were evacuated from the shores of the lake to temporarily settle near forests on the mainland, adding they are need of relief supplies.
On his part, Masaka district LCV Chairman, Andrew Batemyetto advised the residents to cooperate with the enumerators so that they are counted to benefit from government programmes.
https://thecooperator.news/museveni-launches-national-population-census-2024/
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