The Ga West Municipal Assembly has launched its 30-day countdown to the 2021 Population and Housing Census (PHC) Night to prepare the minds of the public towards the exercise.

Clement Nii Lamptey Wilkinson, the Ga West Municipal Chief Executive, said the census was an important national exercise for the development of the country.

He said for the country to achieve its vision of a brighter future the citizenry must fully support the exercise for a smooth and successful enumeration.

Mr Wilkinson called on the media to help in the publicity, education and advocacy activities by conveying only reliable information and facilitate constructive discussions on the census.

He urged the people to cooperate with the census officials and provide them with complete and accurate information, saying: "Remember, the information you provide to the census officials will be strictly confidential."

"It will be handled only by persons who have taken the Oath of Secrecy under the Statistical Service Act 2019 (Act 1003)."

The MCE called on religious and political leaders to use their various platforms to educate their followers on the importance of the census.

Professor Samuel Kobina Annim, the Government Statistician and Chief Census Officer, in a speech read on his behalf, said the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) with guidance and oversight committees had been able to build systems, pool together divers expertise, mobilise resources, and test and document strategies that underlie the successful conduct of Ghana's first fully digital PHC.

He said the census mainly aimed to achieve complete overage of all persons and structures in Ghana, which dovetailed into the "Leave no one behind agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Prof Annim said that necessitated the demarcation of the country into small areas to facilitate the identification of all structures and other places where people lived or slept at night.

"Today, the GSS has completed this assignment leading to the development of Census Geography of Ghana where we have identified 131,739 locations, 51,916 enumeration area, 11,020 supervisory areas in the 260 districts and 16 regions in the country," he said.

He said Monday, May 31 to Wednesday, June 9 had been scheduled for the training of enumerators and supervisors in all the 272 statistical districts in the country.

"Listing of structures will be done throughout the country from June 13 to 25, 2021. The Census Night, scheduled for Sunday, 27th June, 2021, is specific point in time to which all enumeration refers. Thus the Census Night will be used as a reference point for all questions that will be asked in the census. Thus, all enumeration will refer to the Census Night," Prof Annim said.

He said the scheduled 14-day duration of data collection, which started the next evening of the Census Night was referred to as the census period from 28th June to 11th July, 2021.

"Ladies and gentlemen, with the dispatching and distribution of all logistics and finalisation of all systems and trial censuses, the GSS is ready for the conduct of the 2021 PHC," he said, adding that; "To every person in Ghana; You count, Get Counted."