Census faces credibility issue

Wasim Iqbal & Zaheer Abbasi

ISLAMABAD: Population census exercise scheduled to begin tomorrow (Wednesday) is facing a serious credibility issue prompting the federal government and the armed forces to promise verified and credible data.

The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics is under the administrative control of the Finance Ministry which, according to credible independent economists, has blatantly manipulated economic data to show a much better performance than is in fact the case. Given that population determines the number of seats of any province in the assembly as well as the provincial share from the divisible pool the motivation to show a high rate in Punjab for the federal government remains very high with elections around the corner, stated a Sindh based economist on condition of anonymity.

Population accounts for 94 percent of the National Finance Commission (NFC) award and any change in the share of any province in total population would have ramifications on distribution of resources. An understanding has reportedly been reached between the federal government and the provinces that further discussions on the overdue NFC would be subsequent to the completion of the population census exercise.

Moreover, politicians from Sindh, Balochistan, KP and FATA have expressed serious concern over a demographic change due to migration and/or refugee inflows that would compromise the vote bank of national and regional political parties as well as the number of federal employees from any ethnic group.

A huge number of Afgan refugees in Balochistan province have reportedly acquired Pakistani NIC cards, a source of concern for the Baloch politicians, because if they are counted as Baloch residents in the census they may turn the Baloch in the minority in their own province. A large umber of Afghan refugees also live in Karachi!, which is also experiencing the mammoth influx of economic migrants from southern Punjab.

Anwar-ul-Haq Kakar, Spokesman for Provincial Government Balochistan confirmed these concerns but added that the federal government has assured the province that its concerns would be addressed.

Senators of Balochistan stated during a recent meeting of the Finance Committee that between 700,000 and 900,000 people have migrated to Sindh; and Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP) has also filed a review petition in Balochistan High Court and in Supreme Court of Pakistans Quetta Registry to stay the census exercise.

Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali urged the federal government to take necessary measures to make the 6th Population Census credible by developing a mechanism to make the block-wise information that would be compiled on daily basis accessible to the general public.

He expressed these views in a letter to Federal Minister Ishaq Dar: The exercise of undertaking the 6th Population census is a gigantic task which requires concentrated efforts and resources. It is extremely important to accurately count our citizens, as our fiscal and other planning would be based on this data. We need to ensure that each and every citizen is counted and that there is a no exaggeration of numbers.

Muttahida Quami Movement Pakistan (MQM-P) Convener Dr Farooq Sattar pointed out that in 1998 census 47.65 percent blocks (a specified area for counting the number of people within) were established for urban Sindh which have now been reduced to 46.34 an indication, he claimed that urban Sindh would be under represented.

Politicians from FATA also expressed reservations on the census challenging the governments ability to ensure that FATAs and KPs Internally Displaced Persons and Temporary Displaced Persons would be counted and shown in the tribal areas instead of where they are living at present.

Shoukat Yousafzai, former health Minister of KP told Business Recorder that the provincial government supports the holding of a census but had some reservations which should be addressed by the federal government.

He said that federal government did not evolve any mechanism to unblock 350,000 blocked computerised national identity cards (CNICs) in KP. The federal government was denying these blocked CNIC holders the right to vote, he added. However, Chief Statistician Asif Bajwa maintains that the army would be involved in the exercise with the sole objective of giving credibility to the exercise and ensure transparency. There are also speculations regarding verification of census data by the NADRA however Bajwa did not deny or confirm this.