• Calls for extending deadline as many areas have been left uncounted
• Not a single reservation of Sindh has been addressed, claims Ghani

KARACHI: With only a day left in the completion of the digital census across the country, the controversy surrounding the national exercise is yet to over as a key member of the Sindh government on Saturday claimed that “not a single reservation” of the provincial administration was addressed by the Centre and warned that any outcome of the exercise under these circumstances would further deepen the crisis that had emerged after the 2017 national census.

Speaking at the Meet the Press programme of the Karachi Press Club, senior PPP leader and Sindh Labour and Human Resources Minister Saeed Ghani demanded another extension in the deadline and referred to number of areas in Karachi alone where citizens had not been yet approached by the census staff and many households still remained uncounted.

“Till today, not a single point that we have raised has been addressed [for census by the federal government],” he said. “I demand that government extend the deadline of this census because it is not possible to complete the work by April 10. I fear that the way this census is being carried out, it’s not going to fix the flaws of 2017 census. It will further deepen the crisis and create more challenges.”

He cited a parallel exercise carried out by the Sindh government just to countercheck the fairness and effectiveness of the digital census which led to surprising results.

“We conducted our own research in some areas,” he said. “It’s quite surprising that even today no census staff has visited those places. There’s been no household and population count in those areas. And this I am talking about a few where we have reached. There would be many more.”

The Karachi division president of the ruling party then referred to several ‘anomalies’ in the design of digital census, which he said “doesn’t make sense”.

Slams secrecy of data

“There should be a difference between privacy and secrecy,” he said. “Keeping privacy of people’s data and their families is one thing, but keeping it secret even from them isn’t justifiable. Being guardian of a family, I should know that members of my family have been fairly counted. But there’s no mechanism for me to check it out. This puts a question mark over the whole design of the census.”

The minister was not happy over the federal government’s approach to keep the provincial administration away from the process while using all its resources and manpower. He called for effective and coordinated role of district administrations for effective results.

“It sounds so funny that you have taken district administration on board for the census, but you don’t share details or give them access which would ultimately benefit all of us,” he said.

“For instance, the assistant commissioner is responsible for carrying out household and population count in his or her sub-division but he or she is not given access to data to check the details of the total count. He or she is also not authorised to check whether population under his or her administration has been counted or not,” he said, adding: “You aren’t sharing data of his family with the guardian and you are not giving access to data to a civil servant of that particular area who’s leading the whole exercise. What this secrecy is all about?”

Local government elections

Regarding January 15 local government elections, he said that being the single largest party, it was the PPP which deserved to bring its candidate as the Karachi mayor.

He was also hopeful about the prospects of the party for the upcoming April 18 by-elections in 11 union committees (UCs) where polls weren’t held due to deaths of the candidates.

“The Pakistan Peoples Party has sincerely served the people of Karachi without any discrimination,” he claimed. “The party has been able to win over the Karachiites by serving them in the best possible manner. We have emerged as the most popular political party in Karachi after the latest local government elections. The mayor of Karachi would belong to the Pakistan Peoples Party.”

Saeed Sarbazi and Shoaib Ahmed, the president and secretary of the KPC, also spoke.

Published in Dawn, April 9th, 2023