INSTAT announces that the census will start in September, whoever refuses to register the population will be fined up to 100 thousand ALL

After the two-year postponement, in 2023 INSTAT anticipates developing the population and housing census process. INSTAT say that this process will start on September 18 and the field work will last 6 weeks. The director of this institution, Elsa Dhuli, gives some information about the method that will be used and how the questions on ethnicity and religion will be dealt with, which were the subject of debates in the last census. "There will be 8 thousand citizens engaged. who will collect data in the field. Part of the questions will be those related to the building where he lives as well as some questions about agriculture. They will be purely informative data for INSTAT. Meanwhile, regarding questions about the entity, religion and language, citizens have the right not to answer", said Elsa Dhuli. Even in this census, there will be door-to-door knocking, but the innovation is that technology will be used in the registration process. "The method we will use will be traditional, we will go door to door, but no longer with paper, but with a tablet, so we will use technology for a more efficient process fast. All the data will be collected for 6 weeks and then it will take about 7 months to process them and produce the final result, which means the census will be ready in June 2024", said the director of INSTAT. But the law also provides for penalties, in case the citizen refuses to provide information, the fine ranges from 50 to 100 thousand lek. The census was planned to take place in 2020, but it was postponed due to the pandemic. In 2021 it was postponed again due to parliamentary elections, and last year due to the crisis. Registration is expected to last two months at a cost of around 16 million euros.