Census Fails in Nicaragua: $4.3 Million Spent With No Results

Opaque, delayed, and poorly organized. These words describe the execution of Nicaragua’s National Population and Housing Census (Cepov), which had been underway for a full year as of April 30, 2025, with no results released, no clear information on its actual cost, and no transparency about how the money was spent.

The Ortega regime has treated the Census as a state secret. Government spokesperson and self-proclaimed “co-president” Rosario Murillo — known for endlessly praising the government’s so-called achievements — has only mentioned the Census twice: once when it began, and once more to declare it a “success,” according to CONFIDENCIAL’s review of her daily speeches and broadcasts.

“The Census is going ahead, we have already counted hundreds of thousands of homes. It is truly a success and, above all, a success in cultural terms, because we know that each one of these inquiries has to do with the information we need to support all our programs,” Murillo said in her May 8, 2024 soliloquy.

From then on, there has been total silence from the regime’s spokeswoman. Not a single word has been said about the Census in her daily reports or her usual diatribes after the official activities.

The secrecy has been such that, until May 4, 2025, the National Census of Nicaragua is still officially in progress because the dictatorship has not decreed its end. Initially the Cepov was to be executed in May 2024, but this period was extended de facto, without the regime informing the reasons.

“The opaque management of the census process generates strong suspicions. The arbitrary decision to hide the financing, the progress and any detail of the Census only increases distrust,” warned Olga Valle López, director of the citizen observatory Urnas Abiertas.

Census nine years behind schedule

The 2024 National Census was conducted nine years late, since -according to technical recommendations- it had to be executed in 2015.

According to the observatory’s citizen networks, the 2024 National Census ended in January 2025. During those nine months, thousands of census enumerators walked the streets of the country wearing distinctive cream-colored vests and blue caps. They also used a digital tablet to record the population’s responses.

Valle emphasized that “it is not common” for a census to take nine months and gave as an example the last Cepov carried out in Nicaragua, which lasted 14 days. This National Census was carried out under the government of President Enrique Bolaños (RIP), and took place between May 28 and June 11, 2005.

“If we look at other recent examples, in Chile the 2024 population census took three months, despite the fact that its population is almost three times larger than that of Nicaragua. And in Mexico, with a population 19 times larger, the 2020 Census was executed in 25 days,” he detailed.

For the researcher, the extension to nine months reveals an “irregular execution” and some of the reasons are “related to structural factors, but others point directly to poor planning and methodological deficiencies, which seriously calls into question the efficiency of the process”.

The “failures” and distrust of the population

During the first months of the Census, Urnas Abiertas received reports of census takers who did not “reach the assigned areas,” of constant changes in field staff, and of multiple visits to the same household. According to Valle, this “suggests” that the extension of Cepov “was not planned,” but rather a “disorderly reaction to accumulated errors in execution.”

Emilia, a resident of a western neighborhood in Managua, reports that census takers came to her home three times. The first was the official visit, in May 2024, and the other two, in July and August, respectively, were to “verify” details that were not “clear.”

“The same little group came the first two times, but in August different people showed up. When I asked if something was wrong, they said the first girl had made some mistakes,” said the woman, who takes care of her mother and some nieces and nephews because her siblings emigrated to the United States between 2020 and 2021.

According to Emilia, the census takers were very interested in knowing exactly when her siblings left, whether they have stable jobs in the U.S., how much money they send, and how she spends or invests it.

“I think they realized I didn’t tell them the full truth about the money my brothers send, but I don’t see the need to give them all the details,” said the Managua resident.

Social researchers warned that “there is distrust among the population” due to the context of political repression that has existed since 2018. The Nicaraguan Institute of Development Information (INIDE), which is in charge of the national Census, insisted that the information gathered “will be used solely for statistical purposes.”

In an interview on the program Esta Semana, sociologist and political scientist Juan Carlos Gutiérrez warned that citizens would likely “give data that do not reflect their actual conditions” because they distrust how their data will be “used.”

“Data can be used not only for national statistics but also to identify who can be charged more taxes. So people are also afraid of that,” Gutiérrez warned.

National Census and Political Surveillance Commission

For the implementation of the Cepov, dictator Daniel Ortega created, in August 2023, a National Census Commission, which was made up of:

• Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (MHCP), which chaired the commission.
• National Institute of Development Information (Inide).
• Central Bank of Nicaragua (BCN).
• Nicaraguan Institute for Municipal Development (Inifom).
• Urban and Rural Housing Institute (Invur).
• Ministry of Agriculture (MAG).
• Ministry of Education (Mined).
• Ministry of Health (Minsa).
• National Police.
• Nicaraguan Army.

Among these institutions, Inide and the BCN were the executing entities of Cepov through an “inter-institutional agreement,” although the “real” responsibilities and budget contributions of each entity are unknown.

The Central Bank recorded an unprecedented expenditure in 2024 in the category of “surveys and censuses”: 388.7 million córdobas, according to the reports of its financial statements.

Confidencial reviewed the financial statements of the last decade and found that this is the first time the “surveys and censuses” item has exceeded the 300 million córdobas threshold, whether on a quarterly, semiannual, or annual basis.

No authority from the monetary entity has reported that this increase is related to the National Census, although former employees of the BCN mentioned that the payment for temporary workers of Cepov “possibly” was included among the “surveys and censuses” expenses.

This category encompasses what the Central Bank invests in gathering the information used to construct and publish its monthly indicators, such as the Consumer Price Index (CPI) or the Monthly Economic Activity Index (IMAE), which measures the 17 main sectors of the country’s economic activity and is used for investment decision-making.

159.2 million córdobas for the National Census

The 2024 General Budget of the Republic (PGR) did not specify an amount for Cepov, nor did the funds allocated to Inide account for it. However, in the final budget liquidation report, a “159.2 million” córdobas item (4.3 million dollars at the official exchange rate) was allocated for the National Census.

This amount corresponds to the allocation for “current expenses”—salaries, services, and consumption materials—of Inide, according to the report published in late March 2025.

“The updated annual budget for the budget transfer for current expenses is C$272.7 million, with C$254.1 million executed (93.2%), which includes the C$159.2 million item for the IX Population and Housing Census (CEPOV),” the document details.

Olga Valle stressed that “it is difficult to evaluate this figure with precision without knowing in detail how it was executed”, although she considered it “a low figure” when compared to the 14 million dollars (some 234.7 million córdobas at 2005 exchange rates) that the last census in Nicaragua cost.

According to the researcher, “if the final cost was so limited, the technical and logistical quality of the process was probably sacrificed”.

“That could explain the reports of empadronadores with poor working conditions,” he argued.

Inide planned to spend some 92.9 million córdobas on salaries in May 2024 for almost 9,000 employees -enumerators, computer technicians and technicians- of the National Census. For the 2005 census, 12,000 census takers were hired.

After the de facto extension of the census, the census work was taken over by state workers, who were forced to take the census without any extra pay, according to reports published in independent media.

CONFIDENCIAL requested, without success, an interview with officials of the Central Bank and Inide to know what the inter-institutional agreement between both institutions establishes. Until the closing of this note, there were no answers to the e-mails sent to the addresses that appear in their web sites: [email protected] and [email protected].

The trap of financing it with own funds

The regime stated that the National Census was financed with its own funds, which, according to Valle, “frees” the regime from “international commitments to guarantee the quality and publication of the results.”

“This allows it,” continued the researcher, “to act with total discretion: it can withhold the results, disclose only certain data, or even manipulate the information for political purposes.”

In this regard, he recalled that, during the covid-19 pandemic, “the regime openly falsified health statistics, demonstrating that political control prevails over the integrity of public information”.

Funds for the 2005 Census were obtained from a loan of US$6.55 million (109.8 million córdobas) from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and donations from Japan and United Nations (UN) agencies.

The participation of these organizations ensured that the results of the 2005 National Census were audited and certified, which will not be the case for the 2024 Cepov, which , according to social researchers, has maintained a veil of opacity and lack of reliability since its inception.