Chibombo District Commissioner-DC Lloyed Kayeke has admitted to using a Yes/No criteria as a way of selecting enumerators for the 2022 Census of Population and Housing.
The District Commissioner has been accused of including his preferred individuals on the final list of enumerators that were picked for the 2022 census due to the method used to select enumerators. The DC wrote Yes, No on pieces of papers, put the papers in a box, and asked the applicants to each pick one piece of paper and all those that picked No were left out. This criterion has been condemned as some of the applicants that were shortlisted on the first list were left out on the final list.
Kayeke said there was overwhelming response from individuals who wanted the job and the District Commissioner felt that was the only way for him and his team to pick from the various applicants that were more than the number needed.
When asked why the DC did not just pick the applicants with the highest marks as the candidates wrote aptitude tests, Kayeke stated that him and his team thought that was the best option in that circumstance.
Speaking in an interview with the Zambian Business Times-ZBT, Kayeke said no complaints from individuals that picked No could be addressed now and the issue cannot be rectified because everyone that picked yes was deployed into their respective wards.
Kayeke further said the only correction that was made was deploying people to places where they had asked to be deployed in an event that the selected individuals were deployed to places they did not apply to work from.
He added that the complaints would have been addressed if they had been taken to his office earlier.
“I did not put in any of my own people, you know when you are dealing with people who have passed but they are more than what a ward required, to be fair that was the exercise I advised-Yes/No”, he said.
