No need to state tribe, after all

Kenyans who do not wish to disclose their tribe on the census forms need not do so and can simply write “I am a Kenyan.”

At the same time, the cost of the census, whose countdown starts on Friday with the launch of an awareness campaign by President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga at a ceremony in Nairobi, has been set at Sh7.4 billion, with a large chunk of the money going towards paying the 143,000 people hired for the job.

Kenya National Bureau of Statistics director-general Anthony Kilele said census officials would try and persuade people to state their tribe on the sample form.

“It is up to individuals to answer and that’s why enumerators will discuss the question’s importance with them. If you feel you can’t answer, just say you are a Kenyan,” said Mr Kilele.

Nationwide drive

The tribe question has cast a shadow over the census, which will be on the night of August 24/25, with human rights lobby groups saying it will fuel negative ethnicity.

A lobby group, Tribe Kenya, has begun a nationwide drive for people to indicate “Kenya” as their ethnic group on the census questionnaire.

Mr Kilele, however, said the question of tribe is important as it is “one of the variables of who Kenyans are and a matter that one cannot determine.”

“After all, it is easy to tell one’s tribe from the name. Any statistic can be used negatively or positively. The worst would be to have no figures,” he said.

He said statistics was necessary to track and document details of the so-called vanishing tribes.

Mr Kilele said KNBS had received numerous complaints about corruption in the hiring of staff.

Started applying

“We know the society we live in. Some people started applying as early as last year,” he said, adding that 800,000 applications were received.

Preliminary findings of the census on the number of male and female Kenyans will be available in November with the comprehensive census findings being available in two years.