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[belizeculture]

The Minister for the Public Service John Saldivar has commented on the results of the 2010 Belize Population Census and affirmed the results which have been questioned by his colleague in the Belize Cabinet Manuel Heredia, Minister of Belize Tourism.

In a television interview last week Manuel Heredia from Ambergris Caye had questioned the validity of the census taken in his constituency. Mr. Heredia had described the census as "seriously flawed" and a result of serious under counting of the residents of the tourism island. Mr. Heredia had suggested that Ambergris Caye actually has double the number of residents counted in the official census. He attributed the inaccurate findings to incompetence or political bias on the part of the census workers.

Mr. Heredia said in a televised interview that, "According to my personal house to house visits that I have done during my campaign definitely it has to be more than that. If you look at our voters list, it's over 5,000 registered voters. If you put that by 3 which would be a minimum of small families of 3 that would give you over 15,000 people.

"It is my estimate and the Mayors' estimate that we have around 20,000 population on the island, so for 12,000 to be reported I have serious concerns about that."

Speaking in the House of Representatives yesterday, Mr. Saldivar under whose portfolio the census falls, defended the figures gathered by the Statistical Institute of Belize:

"Preliminary indications are that the 2010 under count rate will not exceed 4% or 13,000 persons. It should be noted that while the aim of the census was to count everybody living in Belize, it was impractical for the census takers to interview each person as this would have taken eternity since it would be highly unlikely that all members of a household would be present at the time of the census takers visit. With less than 80,000 household counted it is not far fetch that only one quarter of the population was interviewed.

"The assertion that San Pedro Ambergris Caye has more than twice the population reported is inaccurate, as it would suggest that San Pedro is almost as big as Orange Walk town and Belmopan City combined. This is impossible The discussion on the findings on the 2010 census is very healthy. Criticism and skepticism are welcome because it forces introspection and improvement in how we do things and how we explain things to the public. If it was not known before the Statistical Institute of Belize now knows that we have a more attuned public who must now be convinced of the accuracy of any exercise or statistic presented by the institute."

Mr. Saldivar used Ministry of Education figures to compare primary school enrollment in Orange Walk and Belmopan - which was about three thousand for each of those towns, with San Pedro which was just one thousand.

You can can read a summary of the Belize Census 2010.