Five Homa Bay residents in court to stop KNBS from carrying out census exercise

Five residents of Homa Bay County on Friday 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 claim that there was no public participation ahead of the census.

They have also accused the respondents 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.

Kenya Bureau of Statics, Homa-Bay County Commissioner, the Attorney General and the Homa-Bay Statistics Officer have been named as respondents.

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.

According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) Director-General, Zachary Mwangi, data entry will be done through mobile electronic devices assembled at Moi University and Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT).

Kenya has conducted seven population census in the past with the first being in 1948, followed by 1962, 1969, 1979, 1989, 1999 and 2009.