N200bn spent in 8 years for census preparation – NPC

The National Population Commission (NPC) Friday said  N200 billion has been spent in preparation for the census in eight years.

NPC’s Director of Public Affairs, Isiaka Yahaya, said the insinuation that the sum was spent in the last few years was erroneous as the commission has been preparing for the census since 2014.

He stated this during a press conference in Abuja on Friday.

Daily Trust Saturday reports that Nigeria’s census which should have been held since 2016 following the guidelines of the United Nations had been delayed due to various reasons since it was last held in 2006.

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“Yes, it is true that N200bn has been spent on preparations for the 2023 Census so far. However, this fund was not expended in the last few weeks, months or years but rather since 2014 when preparations for the 2023 Census actually began.

Indeed, part of the N200 billion was expended before the coming of the present commission, which was inaugurated twice between 2018 and 2020 and even before the inception of the Buhari Administration,” he said.

Yahaya said the huge sum was spent on different preparatory processes to ensure the exercise comes out with credible and acceptable data.

He stated chief among its spending was the demarcation of the country into enumeration areas for easy clustering and which has provided the country with data on the number of houses in the country.