Raphael John-Lall

Ex­perts from the field of busi­ness and acad­e­mia all share the view that while the next na­tion­al cen­sus is long over­due, up-to-date in­for­ma­tion is need­ed for eco­nom­ic plan­ning and de­vel­op­ment.

The last na­tion­al cen­sus was con­duct­ed in 2011 and the Gov­ern­ment is about to em­bark on a new de­cen­ni­al one.

For­mer plan­ning min­is­ter in the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion, Dr Bhoe Tewarie, told the Busi­ness Guardian that the cen­sus was sup­posed to have been done in 2020 but be­cause of the pan­dem­ic it was held back.

“Hope­ful­ly we will com­plete this task be­fore the end of 2027. It is the fun­da­men­tal sta­tis­ti­cal ba­sis that we need to plan and make pol­i­cy for na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment. The cen­sus da­ta gives an­a­lysts, re­searchers, pol­i­cy mak­ers, jour­nal­ists a ref­er­ence base for any oth­er kind of da­ta they may want to ex­am­ine, in­ter­ro­gate or in­ves­ti­gate.”

He added that the most im­por­tant new di­men­sion of the Cen­sus is the use of geospa­tial ca­pac­i­ty and the de­ploy­ment of tech­nol­o­gy.

“Hap­pi­ly, this Gov­ern­ment launched a geospa­tial da­ta ex­er­cise in Jan­u­ary 2026 as a foun­da­tion for the cen­sus. This is a vi­tal pre­req­ui­site for an ac­cu­rate cen­sus. It will al­low them to map out every sin­gle build­ing, busi­ness and home and the use of dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy like this will mean the gat­ed com­mu­ni­ties, the re­motest res­i­dences etc. will be ac­cu­rate­ly rep­re­sent­ed.”

Tewarie said $323 mil­lion has been al­lo­cat­ed in fis­cal 2026 for the cen­sus.

“Most of that is re­lat­ed to pub­lic sec­tor re­form, tech­nol­o­gy re­lat­ed to the cen­sus and com­pe­tent boots on the ground to have the cen­sus ex­er­cise ex­e­cut­ed and com­plet­ed. Lat­er this year, an on­line self-enu­mer­at­ing por­tal will come on stream to be sup­ple­ment­ed in ear­ly 2027 by field work for per­son-to-per­son en­gage­ment record­ed dig­i­tal­ly. The com­bi­na­tion of self-enu­mer­a­tion and digi­ti­sa­tion of da­ta from per­son­al in­ter­views will elim­i­nate tons of pa­per­work and scan­ning. So, this is a con­struc­tive step by Min­istry of Plan­ning.”

He said the reg­is­tra­tion of Venezue­lans is an ex­am­ple of the im­por­tance of hav­ing da­ta to make im­por­tant se­cu­ri­ty and eco­nom­ic de­ci­sions.

“The suc­cess of the Venezue­lan reg­is­tra­tion pro­gramme is im­por­tant for get­ting ac­cu­rate, up-to-date da­ta on Venezue­lan im­mi­grants. The cen­sus can­not give you all the da­ta that a coun­try re­al­ly needs. But if the cen­sus da­ta is ac­cu­rate, it can be the base from which you ex­trap­o­late and de­rive every­thing else that you need.”

Fi­nal­ly, he said with new da­ta and mak­ing the right de­ci­sions, the coun­try can over­come the se­ri­ous eco­nom­ic chal­lenges.

“We are hav­ing a tough time now eco­nom­i­cal­ly and fi­nan­cial­ly, but if we fo­cus on a strong di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, job cre­ation and forex rev­enue agen­da and get it right, and then the flow of Venezue­lan nat­ur­al gas be­gins to­geth­er with our own ter­ri­to­r­i­al gas, then we might well be able to have growth, jobs and in­come, house­hold pros­per­i­ty and sav­ings for in­vest­ment for a rainy day.”

In ear­ly Feb­ru­ary, Min­is­ter of Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and De­vel­op­ment, Dr Kennedy Swarats­ingh, an­nounced that a long-de­layed na­tion­al cen­sus will be­gin in the com­ing months. It will be the first since 2011.

Dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing host­ed by the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) he said a full na­tion­al cen­sus has been ap­proved.

Swarats­ingh said the cen­sus will take rough­ly 18 months to be com­plet­ed, but warned that the coun­try can no longer af­ford to wait.

Da­ta and en­tre­pre­neur­ship

Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) lec­tur­er in en­tre­pre­neur­ship, Dr Priscil­la Ba­haw, told the Busi­ness Guardian that as a lec­tur­er and re­searcher in en­tre­pre­neur­ship she wel­comes the an­nounce­ment of a new na­tion­al cen­sus.

“Our last cen­sus was con­duct­ed in 2011. That is a very long time ago. In busi­ness terms, it rep­re­sents a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent eco­nom­ic en­vi­ron­ment. Our cen­sus da­ta typ­i­cal­ly pro­vides in­for­ma­tion on pop­u­la­tion size and dis­tri­b­u­tion, labour force par­tic­i­pa­tion, ed­u­ca­tion lev­els, eco­nom­ic in­di­ca­tors just to name a few. These are not ab­stract sta­tis­tics.”

She em­pha­sised that these sta­tis­tics form the foun­da­tion up­on which en­tre­pre­neurs make de­ci­sions.

“En­tre­pre­neur­ship does not hap­pen in iso­la­tion; it is shaped by who lives in a coun­try, where they live, how they earn, what skills they pos­sess and how com­mu­ni­ties are evolv­ing. With­out up­dat­ed da­ta on these fun­da­men­tals, busi­ness plan­ning be­comes far more un­cer­tain.”

She said in her work with Mi­cro, Small and Medi­um-sized En­ter­pris­es (MSMEs), she con­sis­tent­ly en­coun­ters con­cerns about the lack of cur­rent, re­li­able na­tion­al da­ta.

“En­tre­pre­neurs are mak­ing de­ci­sions about en­ter­ing new mar­kets, hir­ing staff, in­vest­ing in equip­ment and ex­pand­ing op­er­a­tions. Those de­ci­sions re­quire a clear un­der­stand­ing of de­mo­graph­ic shifts, work­force avail­abil­i­ty, and changes in com­mu­ni­ty dy­nam­ics. When that in­for­ma­tion is out­dat­ed, busi­ness­es are forced to es­ti­mate de­mand and risk ex­po­sure. Over time, this weak­ens in­no­va­tion and slows growth.

She al­so point­ed out that the world has changed since the last cen­sus was car­ried out in 2011.

“The glob­al en­vi­ron­ment has al­so changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly since 2011. Tech­nol­o­gy adop­tion has ac­cel­er­at­ed. Mi­gra­tion flows have shift­ed. Ed­u­ca­tion and em­ploy­ment path­ways have evolved. Con­sumer be­hav­iour is dif­fer­ent. If our na­tion­al datasets do not re­flect these changes, en­tre­pre­neurs may de­sign strate­gies based on out­dat­ed as­sump­tions about mar­kets and labour con­di­tions. In a rapid­ly chang­ing world, stale da­ta can qui­et­ly un­der­mine com­pet­i­tive­ness.”

Agri­cul­ture

Agri­cul­ture and busi­ness con­sul­tant Riyad Mo­hammed said agri­cul­ture is one of the most im­por­tant sec­tors in T&T’s econ­o­my and da­ta is im­por­tant.

“We all need da­ta. Ac­cu­rate and up-to-date da­ta col­lec­tion is cru­cial for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s agri­cul­ture sec­tor to sup­port pol­i­cy de­ci­sions, en­hance food se­cu­ri­ty, and dri­ve eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion amid high im­port costs ex­ceed­ing $7.3 bil­lion in 2024. Re­li­able da­ta en­ables ev­i­dence-based poli­cies, such as re­source al­lo­ca­tion for crops and live­stock, and mon­i­tor­ing sup­port like Pro­duc­er Sup­port Es­ti­mates. Out­dat­ed in­for­ma­tion, like the 2011 cen­sus, leads to un­co­or­di­nat­ed ef­forts and re­liance on in­ter­na­tion­al da­ta, hin­der­ing tar­get­ed in­ter­ven­tions.”

He spoke about how hav­ing rel­e­vant da­ta would shed light on chal­lenges in the agri­cul­ture sec­tor.

“New agri­cul­tur­al da­ta and sta­tis­tics would il­lu­mi­nate long­stand­ing chal­lenges in T&T’s agri­cul­ture sec­tor by pro­vid­ing ev­i­dence for tar­get­ed in­ter­ven­tions, es­pe­cial­ly crit­i­cal for small­hold­ers and food se­cu­ri­ty amid cli­mate pres­sures. Fresh cen­sus­es would quan­ti­fy small-scale farm out­puts, yields, and land use shifts since 2011, ex­pos­ing de­clines in sta­ples like toma­toes and root crops due to pests, droughts, and soil ero­sion.”

He con­clud­ed by say­ing that hav­ing up-to-date da­ta gives pol­i­cy mak­ers tools to for­mu­late new plans for the sec­tor.

“A na­tion­al agri­cul­tur­al cen­sus is vi­tal for Trinidad and To­ba­go to up­date struc­tur­al da­ta ab­sent since 2011, en­abling pre­cise pol­i­cy­mak­ing and re­source al­lo­ca­tion in a frag­ment­ed small­hold­er-dom­i­nat­ed sec­tor.”

House­hold sur­vey

De­spite the last cen­sus be­ing done a decade and a half ago, econ­o­mist Dr Vanus James told the Busi­ness Guardian that bod­ies like the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice (CSO) have con­tin­ued to work.

“The CSO con­tin­u­al­ly up­dates its sam­pling frames and meth­ods in the in­ter­censal years. That does not mean that the re­fine­ments en­abled by a cen­sus are not need­ed or even ur­gent af­ter 15 years. The ac­cept­ed in­ter­vals for the con­duct of cen­sus­es is 10 years but COVID threw a span­ner in the works I sup­pose.”

He added that the cen­sus is the most im­por­tant ba­sis for de­sign­ing the stra­ta need­ed for rou­tine house­hold sur­veys (like the Labour Force Sur­vey) and for de­ter­min­ing the ref­er­ence pa­ra­me­ters which are used to judge the qual­i­ty of all oth­er sta­tis­ti­cal pa­ra­me­ters gen­er­at­ed with small­er ran­dom­ly rep­re­sen­ta­tive sam­ples.

“One of the im­por­tant el­e­ments of a cen­sus ex­er­cise is the 10 per cent or 15 per cent cen­sus used to ob­tain fi­nan­cial da­ta from house­holds. This is need­ed to up­date the pa­ra­me­ters of labour mar­ket mod­els that in­form about the state of the labour mar­ket, es­pe­cial­ly the re­turns to in­vest­ment in ed­u­ca­tion at var­i­ous lev­els. And, there are many ar­eas of the coun­try that can­not be ad­e­quate­ly cov­ered by rou­tine sam­ples but can on­ly be by us­ing the cen­sus.”