The Ashanti Regional Security Council (REGSEC) has deployed a mobile security task force to protect Field Officers of the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) as enumeration for the 2021 Population and Housing Census commenced on Monday.

“We are assuring our enumerators of maximum security,” Dr Kobina Abaka Ansah, the Regional Statistician, told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Kumasi, saying the authorities had placed a premium on the safety of the Officers.

More than six million people are targeted to be enumerated in Ghana’s most populous region with more than four million people in the last Census.

Some Field Officers, in the discharge of their duties during the recent listing of structures, were manhandled in some communities, according to the GSS hence the mobile security task force to avert similar incidents.

Dr Abaka Ansah said for effective work the authorities divided the Region into four zones with strict supervision and monitoring by the GSS.

“Our Officers deployed to communities in the 43 districts have been told to work to the best of their capacity without any fear or intimidation.

“They have been told not to hesitate to alert the security taskforce if threatened in the course of their work,” he told the GNA.

Dr Abaka Ansah pointed out that the GSS had supplied the Officers with the requisite safety materials to prevent them from contracting COVID-19.

He also advised the people to observe the social distancing rules and the safety protocols as they patronized the exercise.