Statistics Sierra Leone has started the Training of Trainers for the 2022 Census of Business Establishments (CBE), funded by the World Bank, which is set to commence across the country next week.

The Census of Business Establishments seeks to find and count each and every active enterprise or business (organisation) in Sierra Leone, and register them correctly.

The registration will take into consideration the contact details, main activity and employment/number of employee details.

The 2022 CBE will count all businesses that have fixed addresses or locations across the country; from big businesses to umbrella covered businesses and “Bafas”.

The main objectives of the 2022 Census of Business establishments are to: create a Statistical Business Register (SBR), covering all economic activities in Sierra Leone; serve as the basis for the Universal Business Register (UBR) from which samples for the Annual Economic Survey of Enterprises (AESE) are drawn; facilitate comparison and harmonization with the administrative registers maintained by the National Revenue Authority (NRA) and the National Social Security and Insurance Trust (NASSIT; expand the scope of the CBE to include unincorporated enterprises and all micro-small and medium enterprises (MSMEs); and provide source data for the updating of supply and use tables (SUT) for the compilation of National Accounts.

The World Bank Trainer from Washington DC, Arthur Giesberts will train 175 supervisors and 700 enumerators covering all 16 districts of Sierra Leone. The training covers the software (Survey Solutions) to be used, the survey process, key concepts, definitions and classifications, data collection and learning to organise and supervise the field work.

The Conduct of the CBE is one way Stats SL hopes to improve the National Accounts Compilation for computing the gross domestic product (GDP). The GDP measures the country’s output level and economic growth every year and is a very important indicator to determine the country’s performance.

The CBE will cover all public-private establishments with fixed locations except establishments belonging to government.

The smallest administrative units for the implementation of the 2022 CBE are the localities within a section. The survey will be implemented as a Computer Assisted Field Entry (CAFE) where Computer Assisted Personal Interviewer (CAPI) will be used to capture information electronically for onward transmission to the database.

Training will be done nationally for the supervisors/IT support staff and regionally for the enumerators.