APC Questions Census Mapping, Demands Technical Meeting with Statistics Sierra Leone
By Osman Marah
The opposition All People’s Congress (APC) has raised concerns over the accuracy and transparency of Sierra Leone’s ongoing national census, urging Statistics Sierra Leone (Stats SL) to convene a promised technical meeting to clarify issues surrounding census mapping.
In a letter to the Statistician General, APC National Secretary General Lansana Dumbuya said unresolved questions remain following the completion of Phase One of the cartographic mapping exercise. He cited concerns from the party’s Census Technical Committee about the distribution of mapping teams across districts and the presentation of preliminary results.
According to the APC, districts in the Southern and Eastern regions were assigned a disproportionately higher number of mapping teams compared with the Western Area, Northern, and North-Western regions. The party also faulted Stats SL for failing to present Enumeration Area (EA) data disaggregated by chiefdom, despite declaring Phase One complete.
Dumbuya said Stats SL had earlier committed to holding a special technical meeting to address the concerns, but more than a week has passed without communication.
He emphasized that the proposed meeting should not be conflated with the Census Advisory Committee meeting scheduled for 22 January 2026, noting that the two bodies have different compositions and mandates.
“The composition of the Census Advisory Committee is quite different from that of the APC Census Committee, and a meeting of one should not be considered as addressing the concerns of the other,” Dumbuya wrote.
Despite the concerns, the APC reaffirmed its support for an inclusive and credible census aligned with international best practices and said it remains committed to engaging constructively with Statistics Sierra Leone.
The census process is politically sensitive, as its outcomes influence national development planning, political representation, and the allocation of public resources.
