NPC Spends N160bn On Gadgets, Recruits 1m Ad-hoc Staff

Federal commissioner in the National Population Commission (NPC), Borno State,  Barr Isa Audu Buratai has said the agency spent N160 billion for 800,000 pieces of Samsung Personal Data Assistance (PDA) gadgets that cost N200,000 each for the cancelled census.

He said of the N800 billion budgeted for the general census,  about N200 billion had been expended between 2014 till date on enumeration and demarcation of areas into units,  payment of salaries and logistics among others for a successful census, adding that the commission requires about one million ad-hoc Staff who would be paid nothing less than N140,000 apart from the facilitators recruited from various higher institutions of learning.

Buratai made the disclosure yesterday at a one- day breakfast meeting with media executives in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.

He said the meeting was one of the first steps taken by the commission to brief the general public that though the 2023 census was shifted,  it was done due to the  2023 general elections that clashed with the period of the census,  saying that president Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu will fix a new date , hence the commission never relented in preparation for the census despite the shift by former president Muhammadu Buhari, who then said that the incoming president would create a new date for the exercise.

He said unlike before where the census was conducted manually using paper to write figures, in the upcoming census which is digitalised, the Personal Data Assistance (PDA ) gadgets which contain every information regarding the census will be used for the statistics as well as data collection.

He stressed that with PDA, the era of manipulation and writing of census figures in paper is over, warning that any ad- hoc Staff caught using paper would be arrested and dealt with according to law.

He commended Borno State governor Babagana Umara Zulum for the numerous support he has given to the commission at the state level, and as well commended the Shehu of Borno, Alhaji Abubakar Ibn Umar Garbai Elkanemi,  who he said directed all the Bulamas and ward heads to cooperate with the commission in all its assignments,  adding that Governor Zulum equally directed all the local government chairmen to allocate office to the commission in all the local government areas of the state.