Census extended for one week

TIRANA, Oct. 22 – The population and housing census in Albania will run for another week until the end of October. The head of Albania’s Institute of Statistics, Ines Nurja, announced during a press conference on Saturday that citizens who haven’t registered yet can contact toll-free numbers, and surveyors from INSTAT will go to their residences to collect the necessary information. The census has become an issue of contest especially for the minority groupings in the country who claim their number will be artificially reduced. But another civic grouping, Red-And-Black Alliance claims that the census has been pressed by neighboring Greece in order to increase the number of the ethnic Greek minority through the exploitation of many Albanians residing in its country as residents. The government, on its side, says that the census is used only to collect the data and that is held every ten years, the same as in Europe.