New population figures expected month end

| 10/01/2011

(CNS): The number of people currently living in the Cayman Islands is now expected to be revealed to Cabinet and then the public at the end of January. According to officials from the national statistics office, the first information that will be available as a result of the national census, which began on 10 October last year, will be a precise and up to date population figure. The director of the Economics and Statistics Office, Maria Zingapan, said that although the census organisers had originally anticipated that they would be able to reveal the country’s current head count before the end of 2010, the need to go back and count a number of ‘no contact’ households saw the national survey extended, delaying the revelation of the first statistic.

“The census sweep, where enumerators went back to “no contact” households, was extended to 16 December, hence the preliminary count was also extended,” she explained. “Procedurally, we are expected to submit to Cabinet the preliminary count by end of January,” she said, noting that after government had seen the report it would be given to the public.

Although enumerators had managed to count 90% of households in the original time period given for the count, between 10 October and 22 November, officials decided to extend the process for a few more weeks in order to try and capture the remaining ten percent of people who were away or, in some cases, had refused to take part.

While officials expect to be able to compile and reveal the population statistic in the next few weeks, it will not be until the end of this year that any other statistics will be available as officials say it will take several months to compile, analyse and then report on the statistical circumstances of the country’s population.

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  1. Anonymous says:

    We let the lady (term used loosely) in once and answered her questions. She then came back 4 times over a supposed other household that was in mine. I guess the previous owners rented out the spare room.

    She would not accept our word that there one only one family in the house and wanted to inspect. Crazy, I may answer their questions but they don’t have the right to inspect my home.

    How is it they will accept my word on the number of live birth’s we’ve had and our income but when it comes to a potential other household, they treated us like liars and criminals?

  2. Anonymous says:

    The article stated that the first 90% were met with little difficulty by the enumerators and the final 10% posed a problem by not being home or refusal to comply.

    My question is how accurate will this be?

    How do they know it is 10% who were problematic isn’t the census to determine this number? How big a number is this 10 % overall?

    Are we to add 10% to the final number? 10% of the households could be a much larger number of people involved.

    The word on the street is that there are a large number of illegals in the country. How did the census deal with this segment of the population?

  3. Good For The Goose, but not the McGanda says:

    Well, they darned sure did not count me. I only answer the door to those who know me (and have my phone number) and they kept on coming back….lol. Finally, they gave up. Anyway, my life is none of their business.

    I abide by the law and pay my dues and I do not have to answer intrusive questions if I do not want to. I did not want to and I didn’t.

    If McKeeva won’t comply, neither will I.

    Screw the New World Order and their puppets on a string.

    If you want to see how deep this thing goes, follow the gambling money. Those in the know will understand.

    • Anonymous says:

      "I abide by the law and…"

      Well you’re no longer the law-abiding citizen you thought you was if you refused to complete the Census 🙂

    • Anonymous says:

       What a pity that you sound so proud of your ignorance. Perhaps I was the person you kept ignoring and not answering, sad that you didn’t see the importance of being a part of something important. A census is very important to a country and what was surprising was that a lot of the persons refusing to take place were supposedly the educated and intelligent people. These were the people who slammed doors in our faces, set their dogs on the porch when they saw us coming and were just plain rude.

      One person adamantly refused to take part and then proceeded to tell me  that he was going to "educate" me in the conspiracy I was unwittingly a part of…….the purpose of the census he said was to actual determine exactly what assets people had so that they could tax us all in the future. He continued to tell me that perhaps I didn’t realize that the purpose of the questions asking about the amount of the rooms in a house was so that they could impose property taxes later on and the salary question was to impose income taxes (haven’t figured out how they would impose this based on a range). I found these examples particularly amusing since I thought that Lands & Survey has a registry of all the properties and their owners so the Government could easily obtain data from there. An employer would have income information if income taxes were to be imposed. 

      Another person told me that it was none of my or anybody else’s business what he or his wife earned although I tried to explain to him that it was only a range and not a specific salary they were seeking. He said he had seen the questionnaire and the Government obviously thought he was stupid because they had his block and parcel number so they could easily figure out it was him and then trace his salary (who would have the time or interest in doing this kind of in depth research I am not sure.) 

       

      • Anonymous says:

         I did participate in the census and don’t see a conspiracy in it; however, I do have two comments on your post.

        First, income tax *is* assessed, in many countries, by salary bracket, or range.  Secondly, if government could easily have retrieved information about home-owners’ properties from Lands & Survey, why didn’t they do so?  Surely it would have been easier and less expensive.  

        I did think some of the questions were intrusive (the question about religion is a case in point); however, I did answer them on the (possibly naive) assumption that government has some legitimate goal in mind for the information collected.  

      • Macman says:

        On the contrary this person gave some very valid reasons why he would not answer the questions concerning their income. Can you give an equally valid and lucid reason why in this country it is necessary for the government to know the income of an individual (even if only within a range)? The religion of a person? The number of rooms in a home? What good will it do for the PEOPLE of this country to know these figures?

        The collection of statistics should be for a good purpose not just to provide a forum for statisticians to spout volumes of figures. By the way I suggest you refer yourself to one of the first recordeds (census) which is still in existence "The Doomsday Book" and find the reason why it was compiled!

        Finally I will give you one very important statistic that came out of my experience in the census:-

        The person who came to my home could hardly speak English to the extent where I had to ask for a number of questions to be repeated several times!

  4. Anonymous says:

    "…officials decided to extend the process for a few more weeks in order to try and capture the remaining ten percent of people who were away or, insome cases, had refused to take part."

    And in some cases, those who the Enumerators couldn’t be bothered to come and see again.  We were not at home when they first came around, and they never did bother coming back.  Certainly hope we are not classed as "refusers" or worse still, fined, for something which we did not do at all.

    • Anonymous says:

      I have heard a few people say they were never contacted or counted which is worrying. The lady who came to me was very nice but she made lots of mistakes completing the form. If I hadn’t been watching what she was writing it would have had lots of inaccurate information.