Simovski: At the end of the processing, not a single person will be left out with the census

The Director of the State Statistical Office, Apostol Simovski, today stated that there is no significant non-coverage with the census and that at the end of the processing not a single person will be left out.

– What we are guided by when we conduct certain statistical research is to have a concept of how we will follow the coverage of all units of that research, and also of the census. The main thing that we were guided by were the housing facilities in which the citizens are accommodated, where citizens live, and all these buildings have been fully covered, not a single one has been left out. Yes, there were times when we could not find anyone home, still, it was a summer period when we were conducting the census, but we tried several times to find them, left telephone numbers for them to contact the enumerators, we have no significant non-coverage with the census, stated Simovski after the event dedicated to the project “Increasing the use and availability of official statistical data in the Republic of North Macedonia’. He stressed that it is always possible, even in the most perfect systems, but what they currently expect because the processing is still not finished, is for this non-coverage, if there is any, to be minimal.

The final results of the census, he reminded, are expected in a period of six months from the completion of the census. No later than March, said Simovski, we expect to publish them, but if they manage earlier, they will not wait.

– Work on the processing began immediately after the end of the census and will last until the moment when we will be prepared to present them to the public. It is a process that is inevitable after every statistical operation and is part of the entire process of this operation, said Simovski.

In regards to those who boycotted the census and for whom fines were announced, he said that they have processed those cases, and that other institutions should take measures.

Replying to a question from MIA on the experience of Sweden, which conducts a census based completely on registers, Simovski said that currently we do not fulfil the three key conditions to enable such an operation.

– Our goal has always been to use this method that at the moment is most perfect, but three key preconditions must be fulfilled for this – first, a good addressed register that we do not have, second, to have identity between the official address in our documents and where we actually live and third, to know specific and accurate information on all citizens who do not live in the country, and are out of the country. Unfortunately, all three elements have not been fulfilled at the moment and we could not apply such a method. Otherwise, everyone would have wanted to do that – first of all, it is the simplest, the cheapest, and you immediately have the results, said Simovski.

Translation: N. Cvetkovska