Political and military leaders are determined to stop the forthcoming population census from revealing the truth about our country. They just cannot face up to the facts and figures which the population census will give us if conducted professionally and impartially.
Once again the ordinary citizen in this country has the uncanny feeling that he is sitting in a bus racing down-hill with nobody at the controls, at least no one who knows what he is doing.
There are manipulators around who want to conduct the next elections with completely outdated, unreal voters’ rolls. They can only win in a Zimbabwe as it was constituted in the distant past, not in the Zimbabwe of today. They live in the past, and want to force us all to live in fantasy land, not present day reality.
But the census is not just needed for elections, to determine how many people there are eligible to vote. Given the enormous outflow of Zimbabwean citizens from the country of their birth, we need to know how many are left. We need to know how many people are in formal employment and how many, especially young people, are self-employed in an informal economy which seems to be growing all the time.
We need to know how many children are being born and how many die of childhood diseases within the first five years of their lives. We need to know if our population is increasing or decreasing – the unquestioned assumption that it is growing all the time may well be false. We need to know how many people are dying still of HIV/AIDS. We need to know about population density: how many people live in one house, sharing the same facilities, conditions which lead to abuse of children, but also to unhygienic conditions.
Town planners need to know how many people need vital services like water, sewage systems, electricity. If we do not provide these, cholera and typhoid will be rampant. We need to know how many schools and hospitals will be needed and where.
To play political games with the Population Census 2012 and risk a failure, resulting in figures politically convenient to certain people, but hopelessly inaccurate and useless for serious town planners, would be the height of irresponsibility.
We need above all to face the TRUTH. We need to be freed from our illusions, from self-deception and ignorance, from leaders sick in mind. “The truth will make you free”. – Jesuit Communications
Post published in: Opinions & Analysis