Senior Minister with responsibility for Finance, Dr Ashni Singh, on Monday said he is still awaiting a clear update on the long-delayed 2022 Population and Housing Census and stressed that the Government also wants the final report released as soon as possible.
Speaking with reporters on the sidelines of an event at the Marriott Hotel, Singh admitted that he is unsure what has caused the more than three-year delay. He said he intends to raise the matter directly with Chief Statistician Errol La Cruez. “This is very high on my agenda for discussion with the Chief Statistician because I too would like to see it. I need to have an engagement with the Chief Statistician to find out where it is because we as a Government would like it to be concluded and issued,” Singh said.
When asked when he last spoke with the Bureau about the status of the report, the Minister said that engagement will take place “very soon.”
The census was conducted in 2022, yet there has been no release of even the preliminary findings. The last official communication from the Bureau of Statistics came in October 2024, when it stated that the preliminary report would be available “soon.” A year later, this has not materialised.
Meanwhile, the Bureau had rejected claims that political interference was behind the delay, calling such suggestions “simply erroneous.” It said any setback stemmed from its commitment to ensuring accuracy, adding that census exercises across the Caribbean have also experienced long delays. At the time, countries including Barbados, Grenada, Jamaica, Dominica and St Lucia were facing extended census periods stretching two years or more.
The Bureau said it remains focused on delivering results that meet proper statistical standards and noted that it is a semi-autonomous agency guided by the Statistics Act of 1965 and the UN’s Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics.
