By Alieu Amara Suwu
Statistics Sierra Leone (also known as Stats SL), with the mandate to collect, compile, analyze, and disseminate good-quality official statistics for Sierra Leone, during their presentation at the Ministry of Finance’s budget policy hearing on Tuesday, August 27, 2024, has requested NLe 34,000,000 for the 2025 Population and Housing Census (PHC) for the period of January to December 2025.
The deputy statistician, Lansana Kanneh, explained that the requested amount will be expended on cartography, pilot census, main census data collection, census publicity, census secretariat, data science, vehicles, plants, and equipment.
The Deputy Statistician General said their strategic plan for 2025-2027 is in line with the extended version of the second National Strategy of the Development of Statistics (NSDS II), the five big game changers, Medium-Term National Development Plan 2024-2030, and the President’s speech at the State Opening of the Second Session of the Sixth Parliament of the Second Republic of Sierra Leone.
He added that their key policy actions for 2025 to 2027 are: to strengthen the policy legislative environment of the statistical sector; to strengthen statistical systems in the government ministries, departments, and agencies; to improve the logistical and operational environment of the statistical offices in the country; to scale up the technical, financial, and administrative capacity of the statistical offices; to improve the automatic and digital applications in the national statistical operational in the country; and to promote statistical advocacy and communication of development statistics to the public.
He said in 2024, Stats SL received, up to July, a total of Le13.76m, comprising government subsidy Lel.78m and development partner contributions Le10.04m. He said a total of Le 11.82 million was expensed up to July 2024, mainly in the following areas: Government Subvented Expenditure Le 1.78m expenditure on donor-funded activities Le 10.04m; a total of about $8.4m was expended from the World Bank-HISWA project to support various statistical activities, capacity building, the development of IT infrastructure, and a conducive working environment.
He said during the remainder of the year, it has pleased the President for Statistics, Sierra Leone, to commence the conduct of a traditional decennial census with census data collection planned for December 2025.
Moreover, he said their proposed total budget for FY2025 stands at Le 851.16 million, consisting of recurrent expenditures of Le 11.15 million, a public investment program of Le 790.60 million, and a salary proposal of Le 49.41 million.
Of the planned recurrent expenditure, he said Le8.75 million will be funded by the government and Le2.4 million will be funded by the World Bank-HISWA project.
Of the planned public investment program, he said expenditure of Le851.16; GoSL will fund Le577m to finance the 2025 population and housing census activities, while the World Bank-HISWA project will fund Le213.60m. The salary budget amounting to Le49,41m will be fully funded by the government. And in 2024, he said the government of Sierra Leone will fund 2025 PHC activities, preliminary activities amounting to Le232.22 million.
