ICT Cabinet Secretary, Joe Mucheru, on Thursday, unveiled a hotline that Kenyans could use to receive updates, as well as call, with any queries regarding the upcoming National Population and Housing Census.
Speaking at Harambee House, during a press briefing on the preparations for the exercise, Mucheru revealed 0-800-221020 as the designated phone number.
The CS clarified that the number would only be used for anyone seeking information on the census process and not any other queries.
Mucheru further explained that there will be daily 10am updates, issued jointly by Government Spokesman Col (Rtd) Cyrus Oguna and Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) Director General Zachary Mwangi, from the official census communication centre set up at Teleposta Towers.
In this year's census, for the first time, all the data required will be captured electronically through a tablet, meaning the whole enumeration process will be paperless.
CS Mucheru reiterated that heavy deployment of technology in the exercise will make it even harder for census officials to alter results of the exercise.
He also noted that the network will be stable and in case the primary network fails, two other networks are on standby as back up.
“I would like to assure Kenyans that the information we are about to obtain from the exercise will be of high quality and loopholes that may lead to tampering have all been sealed from the onset.
“The seven-inch tablets that will be used in the exercise are locally assembled. We have a special network that will be used for the exercise and the software deployed is also within our control,” he addressed.
“Even the staff will not find it easy to tamper with the system as no other network will be used to transmit data to the three data centres. We will be monitoring the network all the time,” the ICT CS added.
