I am very thankful to CIVIL for being the wind at our back and giving us full support for conducting and implementing the census, highlighted the Director of the State Statistical Office, Apostol Simovski, at the public event of CIVIL “X-ray image of the Census”.
“The census that was supposed to take place in April was postponed because of the scheduled early elections and because of the pandemic. Only 8 enumerators were infected, and only one state instructor became infected at home. We had 5000 enumerators and we followed the protocols. The pandemic, unfortunately, still lasts and I claim that the census could have been held in April without postponing.
We had much political pressure in the censusoperation. We had an open campaign from one political party for boycotting the census, but there were also closed campaigns against the census.
We had hacker attacks thathindered our work, but they did not manage to get into the database, it was maximally protected.
Our website was constantly under attack, our emails were blocked, hacked, so we sought other hidden paths, methods for communicating with the public.
The enumerators went to all of the citizens, we even placed points for anyone who had not been registered at home to be able to exercise their right to register”, said Simovski.
Statistics is a tool for the business sector for making plans in the economic field. We must not allow for there to be no census in the future for such a long time because we lose a lot as a business sector, says VicePresident of the Macedonian Association of Chambers of Commerce Gabriela Kulebanova.
She adds that without a census, the business sector would not know where to invest, what qualified staff the country faces.
“SSO should be a viable and real base and have value, accuracy, and weight. And that data should be of use to us for planning. We call for a basic connection between the institutions.
The census is an important tool and roadmap for the future. As economists, we await the results from the census in order to not make mistakes going forward”,added Kulebanova.
How was it conducted, what were the challenges and what are the perspectives of the census of the population 2021? – is the main question that the Director of the State Statistical Office, Apostol Simovski, the Vice President of the Macedonian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Gabriela Kulebanova, and the President of CIVIL, Xhabir Deralla, will answer. The event will be moderated by Diana Tahiri of CIVIL.
The event is broadcast live on CIVIL’s Facebook and Youtube channels, while the content resulting from the panel will be published on the Media Platform of CIVIL. The Media will be able to log in with the Zoom link which will be sent.
The event is part of the “Civic Lenses”project, which CIVIL is implementing with the financial support of National Endowment for Democracy.
Translation: N. Cvetkovska
