Monrovia — Enemurators recruited for the 2022 National Population Census are finding it difficult to find a center to undergo the five days of training before the commencement of the population census on October 24, 2022.
According to some enumerators, since the names were posted on LISGIS official website with an exact location, LISGIS supervisors at several centers have told them to go where they wrote the test to be trained for the five days.
One enumerator told FrontPageAfrica that she had to travel back and forth to be accepted for the training but was denied twice.
“Since this morning, I have been going from place to place. My name was placed on LISGIS website but the supervisor at Caldwell told me to go to where I took the test,” Grace Dickson said.
She added: “I do not know what to do because I am tired of moving from one place to another and cannot get any results.”
Another enumerator assigned at the Boatswain Jr. High School in Jamaica Road told FPA that prior to his acceptance, every one of them who sat the test at Boatswain Public School names did not come up.
“We were about 175 people that took the test at Boatswain Jr. High School. All of us that took the test, none of our names came up. LISGIS make an error but they told us to keep calm. They gave us another form to sign and they accepted all of us in. The people are making the recruitment process chaotic and complicated,” he said on the basis of anonymity.
Despite being accepted, he said an additional 10 people who were not part of them were added to their list at the Boatswain Public School.
He further explained the Boatswain Pubic School is not the only center with such a problem. He added that the center at D. Tweh Public School in the Borough of New KRU Town and other centers are having similar issues with their names.
LISGIS Acknowledges Challenges
Amid the hullaballoo on the recruitment process, Wilmot F. Smith said LISGIS stands by the list released by the recruitment committee and deems it credible.
He, however, acknowledged that there are some technical issues affecting the process.
After hearing complaints, Smith said he and his team went into the field to ascertain for themselves the issues surrounding the recruitment process.
“There have been challenges with misinformation, there have been challenges with feedback about some of our facilitators not conducting themselves and not representing us well and we are launching these investigations,” Smith said.
Smith also warned officials of LISGIS to abide by every piece of information posted on LISGIS.
“No facilitator has the right to put anyone out of a training center whose name was shortlisted on the final listing on the LISGIS official website and assigned at that particular center to do their training,” Smith said.
LISGIS Acting boss added that many people could not write their test in their assigned area because of several reasons. However, they were allowed to write their test at their reach and indicate where they were assigned.
“If you know you’re supposed to be going to Fendell Campus to write the test and looking at the traffic you might miss the test -we allowed all of those successful applicants to write the test where they are at the moment but ensure that they state the original site of your assignment,” he said.
“If the number of people who passed could be more than the number of people we needed and you believed that you made a pass. We say that pass was not sufficient enough to meet the 17,071 persons we needed.”
We Are Ready For The Census
With less than a week for the countdown of the national population census, the Acting LISGIS boss said his team is ready to conduct the process in and around Liberia.
According to him, they have met with the local authorities in every county and have divided the country into six regions.
“We are ready, we did the aptitude test. We are conducting training. Even after the census, there will be post-analysis done so that does not mean that we are not ready. We are more than ready and we will deliver with the help of the Liberian people,” Smith said.
He added: “We have all of the experts here and they are working on this project. We have to keep our eyes on the President’s biggest picture, we have a project to deliver. Why it is true that there are some missteps that we are correcting we can not regret now, we have to make sure that this project should not fail.”