Stop It – Sierra Leone is a non-profit humanitarian development organisation that is operating in communities across Sierra Leone in 13 districts. The Organisation quite recently discussed the Sierra Leone Mid-Term Census online with a view to fully participate in the process in disseminating information, education and communication (IEC) of the census to its members and the general public. In particular, the organisation decided to monitor and report the census in all respective districts it covers. Each district is headed by a Programme Coordinator (PC) and the management of information was the responsibility of the IEC Officer of the programme who reports to the PC. On the eve of the census, our members were alerted about the preparedness of Statistics Sierra Leone and the deployment of enumerators across the country for the census to begin. On Friday 10th December the Mid-Term Census 2021 began with the First Family of the Republic of Sierra Leone taking the lead to be counted in Freetown, the capital, and the entire Western Area. However, the story did not replicate the same in other parts of the country as our PCs and IECs sent us these reports:

  1. PUJEHUN DISTRICT

Programme Coordinator Amara Mansaray said he visited the Statistics Office in Pujehun Town and met many enumerators waiting to get their requisite tools to work with in the census counting process such as tablets, funding and other logistics but were to no avail as the District Statistician told him that there was no funding yet available for the enumerators to start the work. This is unlike Freetown, in the Western Area where a few places kicked off on Friday with the First Family at State Lodge, at Hill Station, taking off the process. But for Pujehun Town the first day registered no progress except promises that the head office of Stats-SL will provide or pay 30% of funding which was still pending. Thus, the first day was much of a lacklustre performance. People suffered and there was no allocation for other provisions. Even the list of the enumerators to know their destinations was not available at the time of the visit except the Supervisors and Field Officers.

  1. MOYAMBA

Since Thursday 9th December (Census Night), Moyamba Town was reported by Alie Badara Fofanah, the Programme Coordinator of Stop It Moyamba saying that many enumerators deployed in Moyamba Town were foreign. They did not know the place and lacked assistance. Also, they encountered lots of constraints and complained of acute challenges. On Friday, Census Day, a local MP, Hon. Semion Fefegula of Constituency 096 who arrived at the scene talked to the already disillusioned populace to be patient and gave them food to eat. Reasons for their constraints were learnt that they did not receive their allowances since the vigil of the programme and this won’t come as early as Monday due to lack of funding as the World Bank as now withdrawn from the programme and the government of Sierra Leone was left to sort out the situation of finding funds to support the entire programme. As it stands on Friday, there were no payments, no logistics and the enumerators did not understand the areas they would be operating. As far as Moyamba was concerned, the interior parts of the township and district have not started yet the census, and the entire process faces acute challenges entirely.

  1. BONTHE

From Moyiba Town, in Bonthe, P.C. Daniel Gborie said the township was quiet and there was no semblance of the census. To him, the census was only theoretical but not practical in Bonthe. There was no presence of it, and thinks that the census makes him to doubt how the government was going to achieve a credible data out of it, as it intended.

  1. KARENA

In Karena, there was great strife as flocks of people entered Kamakwie, the administrative capital of Kerena. Susan Conteh is the Programme Coordinator and told us that the information the Stats-SL officials told them was that the district materials and other equipment or tools and logistics for the enumerators would arrive very late on Friday, the start of the census day. As a result, there was no official business that took place. According to Susan, the team stocked in Port Loko where they were attending to the teams there first before they could come to Karena on Saturday 11th December. Many enumerators came as far as Sanda Magbolontor and they suffered for lack of food and shelter as there was no one to address their concerns since the officials were not around. Most lacked money to buy and eat or lodge somewhere because they were expecting that they would be addressed immediately and deployed in their respective areas of work, and start the work earnestly but this did not happen. However, they were looking forward to Saturday when the officials would come.

  1. BOMBALI

Makeni City was reported calm as there were hardly seen enumerators. Various accounts from the Deputy P.C. Martin Bai Bureh told us that enumerators were not seen in his area in Congo Town and other environs. Also, most people did not know whether Friday 10 was Census Day in Makeni City because hardly they talk about it or see semblance of it in and around the city. Bash said the people did not know if the Census was going on as he walked from Congo Town, to the College, NP, EBK Campus and Timbo, etc and no action was seen. In all of these areas, he said that there was no counting taking place. Stop It Bombali Chairlady Mrs. Aminata Koroma added that in her community she only overheard people talking about the census that it has started but did not see any enumerator on Friday. Shyllon, another executive member of the team said they monitored villages around and surrounding Bombali, but there no signs of census activities being undertaken. However, they were hopeful that tomorrow will be different as they hope to see action taking place

  1. KAILAHUN

In Kailahun, Lamin Lahun is the Stop It Kailahun IEC Officer and reported that the Stats – SL Pay Team only arrived in Kailahun in the afternoon around 3-4pm on Friday after spending the whole day waiting on them. They had to deal with more than 10 halls of more than 1000 people with each having 140- 150 people (enumerators). They only dealt with one third of the number leaving out a huge portion of the population unpaid and said they will continue to pay them on Saturday. A staff of the pay team came up to them and said that the payment will continue the next day but already the possibility of covering the census within 10 days has become a big setback for the government as this won’t be enough to cover the first and second days lost as enumerators would have to be settled their arrears before they start the work

  1. EAST DISTRICT

From Calaba Town in the East of Freetown, Joseph M. Margai is the IEC Officer for Stop It – East District and sends us this report:  Calaba Town was calm and less attentive to the mid-term census as the head count was simultaneous seen carried out by enumerators. However, many census officials were afraid to openly carry out their work by visiting centres and according to Margai, this makes it difficult to carry out the work.