Skopje, 3 September 2021 (MIA) – Justice Minister Bojan Marichikj in an interview with TV 21 on Friday said census workers have been hired, and the State Statistical Office is making final preparations. According to the Minister, at the moment census taker training is nearing completion, while health protocols have been long concluded, and now it remains for the country, after twenty years, to begin the national headcount. “We had a long campaign, so we reached a number of over five thousand census workers, and where they were lacking, we hired contract workers, as they are not in regular employment,” Marichikj said. The Justice Minister urges everyone to take part in the census, adding that the state already has the data but they need to be confirmed and updated. He noted that if citizens refuse to allow unvaccinated census workers to take their data, they will be replaced with vaccinated census workers, adding that most census takers are vaccinated nevertheless.  According to him, it was unacceptable to introduce mandatory vaccination for census takers because vaccination by duty is not mandatory for anyone, not even health workers. “We’re ready to conduct a safe census in terms of health as well. Training and preparation of census takers for their door-to-door effort are aimed at enabling them to quickly and efficiently complete the whole operation in people’s homes in 10 to 15 minutes. We have the data, but it needs to be updated and verified,” said Marichikj. He mentioned that elections had already been held in the country without affecting the epidemiological situation and the number of new infections had not increased. The Minister, stressing that most census takers are vaccinated, urged that the issue not be abused by destructive political forces. “There are measures and fines for those who refuse to take part in the census, but we don’t want to use those methods. There is no interest in not participating in the census, the census is important for everyone, and census results will be valid for the next ten years. Daily politics should not be discussed, some parties think that the worse is the better for them, such as Levica and other organizations - these are destructive political forces, because by urging citizens not to take part in the census, they are trying to falsify the census,” said Marichikj. The census results won’t lead to a change in the constitutional categories, the Justice pointed out. He said that citizens should trust the process and not fear for their acquired rights. “It should be noted how many resident citizens we have, and how many non-resident. Both groups will be included in the final total number that is important for the constitutional categories. I assure you that no one will lose any rights,” Marichikj said. “We need a real number, we don’t expect major deviations, but there’s political consensus on the rights and no one should fear that anything will be taken away from them. If anyone claims otherwise, it’s only destructive political forces,” he added. Marichikj pointed out that the online census for the members of the diaspora is already underway and it will end on September 30.