The Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) soldiers have undergone and completed a nine-day training at Gadaffi barracks in Jinja district on how to conduct the upcoming National Housing and Population Census (NHPC).

The Executive Director of the Uganda National Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), Dr. Chris Mukiza, while officiating the closure of the training of over 500 soldiers on May 6, 2024, said that it was good to have the UPDF officers train as supervisors and enumerators.

“It was a good decision to have UPDF officers train as supervisors and enumerators because it was going to be hard for UBOS officials, who are civilians, to access the barracks to count soldiers and their families,” Mukiza said.

He applauded the UPDF for participating in the National Housing and Population Census and emphasized the need for everyone to be counted.

Brig Gen Ephraim Mugume, the head of the UPDF Census Committee, said that participants were drawn from all units and formations of the UPDF to work as battalion supervisors and enumerators.

“We have been contacting various trainings concerning NHPC; this team was the last one to be trained; they are very ready, and it’s the team that is going to interface with all the people in the barracks to capture all their data, and I call upon all colleagues to cooperate with the enumerators to make the exercise easy,” Brig Gen Mugume said.

He called upon the soldiers to utilize the knowledge acquired from the training with the ideological aspect of UPDF and carry out the exercise effectively.

The National Housing and Population Census is expected to start on May 10, 2024, which has been designated as a national public holiday, and the exercise will run for ten days.