Panama conducts a technical test of the population and housing censuses

According to the Comptroller of the Republic, Gerardo Solis, from Sunday until October 15, they will review data collection and transmission through special equipment such as a portable capture device, a type of small-sized computer, with processing, Internet connection, memory and storage.

Three venues will host this pilot exercise, among them the town of Tocumen, Province of Panama; The town of Cabira (Panama Oeste), the Caribbean neighborhood of Cristobal Este in Altos de los Lagos (Colon).

According to the official, the operation will allow the preparation of national diagnoses in the social, demographic, economic and sectoral fields.

For her part, the Secretary-General of the Comptroller, Xenia Vazquez, indicated that for this test, they will have 169 collaborators, including inspectors, assistants, supervisors, counters, drivers, secretaries and support technicians.

For the safety of registration staff, health measures will be adopted during testing to prevent and control Covid-19.

Supervisors and the counter will be duly identified by their uniform and credentials, he said.

The informant will be able to verify the identity of the enumerators and supervisors assigned to the censuses, by entering the website: www.censospanama.pa/verificacion/

For the 2023 censuses, the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INEC) indicated in a statement that it would need at least nine thousand people to meet the requirements for collecting research data between January 8 and March 4 next year.

He added that it should cover the 136 areas established for the study, and for this they need at least seven thousand census takers and about two thousand supervisors to take over the field work.

At a cost of $54 million, censuses will be conducted two years ahead of schedule due to restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

INEC Director, Samuel Moreno, indicated that in the first week of July 2023, they will release preliminary data and official data in September of the same year.

He added that conservative estimates of the population of Panama are estimated at more than four million and 200 thousand people.

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