Chaos as youth storm census enumerators training centre in Kangemi

Tension remains high in Kangemi in Westlands Constituency after residents took to the streets on Thursday to protest the recruitment of census officials in the area, terming it as flawed.

Police were forced to lob teargas canisters to disperse youth who had stormed census enumerators training centre in Kihumbuini primary school in Kangemi, Nairobi County protesting the ‘flawed’ hiring.

According to the residents, majority of the enumerators are from Eastlands.

Westlands Member of Parliament Tim Wanyonyi however said that the process will not go on, until the register is audited.

This comes barely a week after five residents of Homa Bay County moved to court seeking to stop the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) from carrying out the census exercise in the county.

The five; Michael Otieno, Evance Oloo, John Okambo, Antony Gaya and Daniel Otieno Onyango accused KNBS of failing to adhere to the principles of recruitment by hiring people who had not applied for the various positions and who are serving as public servants terming it unconstitutional.

In this year’s census, a total 174,700 personnel will be hired for the exercise set to be conducted on August 24 and 25, 2019.

It is expected to be a paperless process as the government seeks to make use of technology to obtain a complete count of all Kenyans.