Some 572 people are receiving a six-day intensive training by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) on the 2024 Integrated Business Establishment Survey (IBES) in the Volta Region.
The training commenced on Monday (8 January) and is expected to end on Saturday (13 January). Data collection is to start on Sunday (8 January) and is expected to happen within four weeks across the country.
IBES 2024 seeks to obtain updated data on all businesses in the country to assist in policy-making and planning for the development and productivity of the country.
All businesses are to be enumerated in the first phase of the exercise; this includes hawkers, mobile and online businesses, open space businesses and establishment firms.
Micro, small, medium and large businesses are to be captured.
Unlike previous business surveys, IBES 2024 will cover the country’s agriculture sector, Industry and goods and services.
GSS in the Volta Region launched the exercise in Ho on Thursday (11 January), where training of field workers is taking place.
The Volta Regional Lead of IBES 2024, Dr Johnson Ahiadome, said the survey is important because “we will be able to know what structure of economy we have, what nature of businesses we have, and it also gives us the activities that businesses are involved in, their location, their types, their sizes and where we can find them.”
He said the data from the survey can help tackle unemployment in the country.
“The data is a kind of employing data, the size of employers of businesses, what nature of people they employ, what they’re doing and several people that they’re employing and that can also help us to improve and solve the unemployment problem as a country,” he said.
On his part, the Volta Regional Statistician, Louis Tobo, said the exercise is digitised, hence no field worker can cook inaccurate information.
Field workers are to use Computer-Assisted Personal Interviews (CAPI) for the exercise. Louis Tobo urged the field workers to work genuinely and desist from cooking data by themselves but rather visit every business in order to obtain accurate data.
He urged the public to welcome the exercise and also give accurate information about their businesses.
The exercise is structured into two phases: the first phase is a census of all businesses and the second phase is a sample survey.
In 1987 and 2003, Ghana conducted the National Industrial Census; the name was changed to IBES in the 2013 exercise and it is conducted every ten years, a year after the Housing and Population Census.
About IBES 2024
Mobile businesses are to be enumerated in a day exercise to prevent double counting. Mobile businesses include delivery vehicles, hawkers of all kinds of items, including pure water, cola nuts, mobile phone accessories, head porters (kayaye), shoe-shine boys and among the rest.
Open-space businesses such as waakye, kenke, koko sellers and all businesses regardless of size in an open space are to be enumerated.
Establishment businesses include businesses that are operated at a fixed location in a structure, such as state institutions, churches, schools, hospitals and banks.
All profit and non-profit organisations are to be enumerated.
Reporting by Albert Kuzor in the Volta Region
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