Post a comment 
The All Peoples Congress (APC), through its Census Technical Committee, has formally written to the Statistician General of Statistics Sierra Leone, demanding a special technical meeting to address concerns surrounding the ongoing cartographic mapping exercise ahead of the national census.
In a letter dated January 20, 2026, and signed by the APC National Secretary General, Lansana Dumbuya Esq., the party expressed dissatisfaction over unresolved issues raised during a recent engagement with Statistics Sierra Leone regarding the completion of Phase One of the mapping process.
According to the APC, its technical team raised serious concerns about the basis for allocating mapping teams across districts, alleging that districts in the Southern and Eastern regions were disproportionately allocated more teams compared to districts in the Western Area, Northern, and North-Western regions. The party also faulted Statistics Sierra Leone for failing to present Enumeration Area (EA) data disaggregated by chiefdoms for Phase One of the exercise.
The APC further stated that it had requested a detailed timetable for the remaining three phases of the cartographic mapping but had not received the information.
The letter recalls that during the engagement, the Statistician General promised to convene a special technical meeting where his team would explain the criteria used in allocating mapping teams and provide clarification on variations in the data captured so far. However, the APC noted that more than a week has passed since that commitment was made without any communication from Statistics Sierra Leone.
While acknowledging an invitation extended to attend a meeting of the Census Advisory Committee scheduled for 22 January 2026, the APC emphasized that such a meeting cannot substitute for the promised technical engagement, citing differences in composition and mandate between the two bodies.
“The composition of the Census Advisory Committee is quite different from the APC Census Committee, and a meeting of one should not be considered to address the concerns of the other,” the letter stated, stressing that the proposed engagement must be special, separate, and technical in nature.
Despite its concerns, the APC reaffirmed its commitment to a credible, inclusive, transparent, and internationally accepted census process, and expressed readiness to engage constructively once the requested meeting is convened.
The development comes amid heightened public and political scrutiny of the census process, which is considered critical for national planning, representation, and resource allocation.
