The National Census exercise is progressing well into its second week in the Rabaul District of East New Britain province despite the recent law and order issues in Rabaul Town. This was revealed by the District Census Coordinator (DCC) John Matava during a recent brief update at the District Headquarters at Kurakakaul, North Coast Road. Mr. Matava said that the respective Local Level Government (LLG) teams are doing great in terms of coverage of households and added that most teams are now into the process of transferring raw data from the Paper Assisted Personal Interview (PAPI) census method to the Computer Assisted Personal Interview (CAPI) method. Matava said that currently the LLG Managers and Supervisors are attending a refresher workshop on handling the CAPI census method, which will assist them in transferring data from PAPI to the CAPI system using the tablets. He said that with the CAPI system we can be able to report on real time data and population accessed through the web-based server. “Watom LLG is completed and is now into quality check with Rabaul Urban, Balanataman and Kombiu LLG furnishing up their data collection forms.” “Otherwise, most teams are now into the CAPI training and are now transferring data from PAPI to CAPI,” said Matava. The DCC said that though the census tablets arrived late this week, with few team members missing out on other materials, the teams still proceeded with the census exercise. “Apart from the late issue of tablets, we are also faced with the challenge of covering some deserted homes especially in Ward 8 of Rabaul Urban LLG and Malguna No.1 of Balatanaman LLG. These homes were affected in the recent Rabaul Town fights causing families to flee their homes for safety,” said Matava. He further said that the Rabaul Urban and Balanataman LLG census teams are encouraged to carry out at least three attempts in these affected communities to ensure that they are counted. Meanwhile, the Acting District Administrator, Freddy Lemeki has commended the Rabaul district census teams for their tireless efforts in conducting the census exercise despite setbacks. “As we all know, Rabaul district has dual wards in both the origin and resettlement area and some are even scattered out in other districts which has always been a challenge, and I’d like to commend our teams for their commitment and dedication in this very important exercise.” He encouraged families to report to their respective LLGs if they have not been visited by a census team so that they can be counted.