Let me begin by inviting you to Google Pakistan's federal and provincial
statistics departments' websites. You will note that federal and Punjab
government's websites will appear prominently, but that of Sindh and
Balochistan bureau do not appear at all. The website of Khyber
Paktunkhwa's bureau of statistics still reads 'NWFP Bureau' in the
search engine, though it provides major development indicators from the
year 2009.
Such is the priority attached to compiling and disseminating
statistics in Pakistan in an age when statistics play an instrumental
role in strategic planning, research and evaluation in any country.
But who cares about statistics? When we talk to officials in
these departments, we are told that it is difficult to reform because
there is little demand for data. There is some truth in it. After all we
have not raised our voices enough for updating the 15-year-old
population census data.
The previous government refused to release any information
regarding the poverty profile in Pakistan. The inter-industry flows
usually provided by supply-use tables was last published in 1991. The
provincial gross domestic product (GDP) is rarely updated. We don't see
quarterly national income accounts - so much needed by the private
sector for business planning. There are also no inter-regional trade
matrices for Pakistan.....and the list for such information gaps can go a
mile long.
I am forced to compare ourselves with the neighbours and if we
only consider population census as a case in point, then India had a
census released in 2013 (current year), Bangladesh had the same for
2011, Sri Lanka for 2012 and Nepal for 2011.
What is keeping us so behind in producing something that is
intuitively important for planning and development in Pakistan? We start
by analysing three hypotheses.
First, is it the lack of resources that prevents collection of
statistics in Pakistan? Second, it may be the institutional governance
of our statistical institutions that is preventing them to move
proactively. Third, perhaps the lack of capacity in the permanent staff
housed at these federal and provincial offices is not allowing
proliferation of statistics.
Having a background with the Planning Commission, I fairly
remember that the project proposal (PC-I) for updating supply-use tables
was twice tabled in CDWP meetings since 2002. The first time the
request came for updating until 1999-2000. A similar request came later
for updating those tables until 2005-06. Both these requests were
entertained with development budget fully provided for. However, both
projects remain incomplete to-date. So we may conclude that access to
financial resources is not a large part of the problem.
What about institutional governance? For a very long time the
Federal Bureau of Statistics remained an attached department of the
Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs Division. In fact the officials
at the Finance Division were occasionally accused of manipulating data.
Later, it was reorganised and called Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. But
it still remained an attached department of the same ministry for
administrative and related purposes.
More recently the Federal Bureau of Statistics was merged with
the Population Census Organisation and Agriculture Census Organisation.
The new entity Pakistan Bureau of Statistics claims that it has wider
autonomy now over its operations. This federal entity has had access to
various foreign expertise through technical assistance arrangements.
Since 2005 GTZ - a German entity has in fact been sitting inside the
offices of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics with an aim to build capacity
of Pakistani statisticians.
At the federal level, most provincial bureaus of statistics are
under the Department of Planning and Development. They house vast teams
with an assistant director level position responsible for reporting at
district levels. There are also field offices in most districts. One
struggles to find studies that have evaluated the capacity gaps of the
provincial bureaus.
One of the key weaknesses of the provincial bureaus in the past
has been the weak dissemination of their efforts. Still we see at least
two bureau offices not maintaining/updating their websites regularly. I
often ask a simple question to the assistant directors responsible for
their district. What is this district's GDP? The answer has not come
yet.
Taking a look at press clippings, one feels that there have been
times when the autonomy of statistics authorities in Pakistan was
breached. Not allowing them to independently conduct operations of
National Accounts Committee, population census and poverty estimation
are a few examples among many. Most of the officials who have headed the
statistics department have later complained about the lack of
empowerment required to disseminate data in a transparent manner.
Finally we turn to the capacity issue. There are three key constraints here.
First, the statisticians graduating from Pakistani universities
lack applied experience. Second, the on-job training provided to the
statisticians is usually obsolete (eg Pakistan until today has not been
able to completely implement UN System of National Accounts 1993).
Third, the foreign trainings provided to several statisticians
pay little dividend as upon their return these officials either do not
serve in same positions for long or leave the department on account of a
poor career structure. There are examples where statisticians recruited
by the Federal Bureau of Statistics are now serving under Section-10 or
on contract basis in other ministries or attached departments of the
government. One should not blame them entirely as their counterparts in
attached departments have a remuneration package which is three times
than what they get in their parent department.
Due to these constraints, the federal statistics department has
been renewing the contracts of the foreign-funded project being managed
by GTZ for in-house capacity building. This is not sustainable unless
the officials being trained have certainty of tenure in current
positions and are empowered to carry out changes in methodology,
compilation and dissemination of data. At the same time, they should be
allowed a respectable career path where their promotions on satisfactory
performance should be ensured besides allowing a market based salary.
Lastly, the timely and accurate provision of statistics is vital
for the post-18th Amendment policy planning and implementation. Our
statistical authorities need to respond to the changing administrative
roles of various government tiers. One example is not having updated the
sampling methodology for conducting micro level surveys across
Pakistan. We have a household-level Pakistan Social and Living Standards
Measurement Survey - of which the sampling methodology has rarely
changed. One struggles to find any representative data in this survey on
for example FATA or Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
Such regions could have become part of our dataset had we
adopted revolving samples across various years. The question of how
representative is the survey exercise also applies to labour force
survey of Pakistan as well as several more frequent exercises such as
surveys related to prices and production.
Going forward, there is a need for serious introspection with
regards to gaps in institutional governance and capacity. The easiest
way towards correction will be to benchmark processes with high
performance statistics departments - many of which are open to public
through their training or symposiums.
I cannot end without recognising the utter lack of motivation in
the official staff working in our statistical departments. This must be
addressed not just through financial but also non-financial means such
as recognition of services, provision of foreign trainings on merit
basis, certainty of tenure, and timely promotion.
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