Despite efforts by the Federal Government and the United Nations Population Fund to secure funding for the 2023 population and housing census, no donations have been received, Erevision MediaTV gathered.
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NPC Chairman Hon. Nasir Isa Kwarra
In March of this year, Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Clem Agba, announced plans to establish a basket fund to collect donations for the census.
Agba stated that a total of N869bn was required for the census, with the government committing N291.5bn and an additional N327.2bn needed.
However, as of now, no donations have been secured, and the government has allocated N224bn for the census. The lack of donor support raises concerns about the feasibility and accuracy of the upcoming census.
“So far, the government has committed N291.5bn ($632m) to the census, making it 46 per cent of total funding for the census. An Additional (immediate) sum of N327.2bn ($709.9m) is required to complete the census
The minister urged members of the private sector to either donate cash or offer to buy some of the materials needed for the census.
The NPC chairman Hon. Nasir Isa Kwarra said, “It is important to emphasize that our data is very valuable. If at the end of the day, we don’t receive contributions from Nigerians, the data is supposed to be free but we may have to attach some little cost-recovery value to our data to make sure we are able to provide the services for everybody. But it is not our decision. It is the government’s decision. We will make a proposal to the government on that.”
He added that the Federal Government might offer its $3bn worth of geospatial data to Google Maps for a fee.
“In terms of value, experts have estimated that the geospatial data we have is up to $2bn-$3bn. It is far better than Google Maps. In fact, we will be reaching out to Google Maps if they will take some of our data and pay us so that they can also update some of their own data,” he added.
Nasir Kwarra also explained the reason for the high census budget, saying, “People think we are spending so much money on the census. We are employing technology and this technology is not cheap. It is very costly. Because this is the first time we are doing this, the cost is high. The future census will not be costly as this.”
