The census, which was originally scheduled for August, is now expected to be held at a later date. UBOS deputy executive director Godfrey Nabongo said that the Bureau is still awaiting guidance from the Ministry of Finance on the new date.

“We are still working with the Ministry of Finance to get a new date for the census,” Nabongo said. “We are also working on procuring the tablets, which is a major challenge for us.”

The tablets are needed to collect data from households across the country. The government had initially planned to use paper forms for the census, but this was later scrapped in favour of a digital approach.

The delay in the census is a setback for the government, which needs accurate data to plan for development. The last census was conducted in 2014, and the government has said that it needs to update the data to inform its policies.

The postponement of the census has also caused uncertainty for the thousands of people who were expected to be employed as enumerators. Nabongo said that UBOS is still working on a plan to compensate these individuals.

“We are still working on a plan to compensate the enumerators,” Nabongo said. “We will communicate with them as soon as we have a plan.”

The postponement of the census is a blow to the government’s plans, but it is also a reminder of the challenges that Uganda faces in conducting a large-scale data collection exercise. The government will need to address these challenges if it wants to ensure that the census is a success.