Limpho Sello

ENUMERATORS will today launch the 2016 Population Census by conducting a head count at the Matsieng Royal home of King Letsie III and the enumeration exercise will cover all the country’s 10 districts.

The exercise ends on 24 April but the Minister of Development Planning Mr Mokoto Hloaele said it could be extended by a few days to cater for those heads of families will not be found at home during working hours.

The last census was conducted in April 2006 and it was found that Lesotho’s population stood at 1.9 million.

The Ministry of Development Planning’s Public Relations Officer Ms Mpho Mosili yesterday told the Sunday Express that the decision to start with the royal family was meant to send the message that the census is extremely important and every the citizen of Lesotho should take part regardless of their status.

Mr Mokoto Hloaele appealed to the public to cooperate and with enumerators to ensure a smooth exercise.

“The public needs to work hand in hand with the enumerators for the success of this crucial job. It is important that everybody is counted in order for them to be included in the country’s development programmes,” Mr Hloaele said.

“To the enumerators go and work hard and dedicate yourselves to this important job that comes once after 10 years. I’m aware that there were challenges during the preparation for the census and we were able to control some of them. Some were however beyond our control.”

Mr Hloaele said despite the hiccups, the census had created 8000 jobs and had supported businesses that predominantly hired Basotho.

He said in preparation for census, workshops for enumerators had been successfully conducted and the necessary equipment was already in place for the exercise.

He said it only remained to ensure that enumerators were deployed to their respective stations for duty around the country.