President Irfaan Ali has received the first copy of the preliminary report of the Guyana National Population and Housing Census 2022 expected to be publicly launched later on Monday.
The report was presented by the Deputy Census Officer, Vanessa Profitt, who is also Deputy Chief Statistician at the Bureau of Statistics. President Ali commended the Bureau of Statistics for the diligent and successful execution of the 2022 census, noting the magnitude and scale of the project, while also reaffirming the value of the data gathered from the census for the purposes of informed policymaking by his administration, including for the purposes of public investment decisions going forward.
Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh, who was present at the handing over ceremony, had earlier promised that the preliminary results would have been been made public before the end of 2025.
The Bureau of Statistics, in a statement in 2024, disputed claims that delays in publishing the 2022 census results were due to political interference, noting then that the legal framework guarantees its independence, with work guided by scientific principles and international statistical standards.
The statement attributed any delays to ‘considerable challenges encountered during this census round,’ noting that similar delays were experienced in other Caribbean countries including Barbados, Grenada, Jamaica, Dominica, and St. Lucia.
Factors such as respondent suspicion, apathy, and post-COVID fatigue contributed to the slower enumeration process.