ISLAMABAD: The Opposition Leader in National Assembly Omar Ayub on Friday severely criticised the government, accusing it of relying on what he called “outdated and unreliable” statistical data – warning that such practices were eroding evidence-based policymaking and stalling economic progress.
Talking to journalists following a meeting with World Bank officials and a briefing by Commerce Ministry on tariff-related issues, he expressed serious concerns over the credibility of figures published by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), citing glaring inconsistencies.
Referring to the recently released Economic Survey of Pakistan, he described many of the indicators as “absurd,” claiming the figures were “fudged, fabricated, and misleading.”
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He took particular aim at the livestock data, which he said epitomised the flawed nature of PBS reporting. “The way PBS claims to collect data on the increase in livestock numbers defies logic,” he remarked. “It lays bare the absurdity of the data driving our national economic policies.”
During the Commerce Ministry’s briefing, he said that the opposition MPs grilled officials over the reliability of the statistics underpinning country’s trade policies. He argued that obsolete metrics were distorting sectoral analysis, especially in agriculture, where livestock accounts for 64 per cent of data. This, he said, grossly skewed the broader economic picture.
“Our regional competitors are racing ahead with real-time data and modern analytics, but we’re still stuck in the past. A 21st-century economy cannot run on 20th-century statistics,” he regretted.
He went on to claim that tariff mechanisms had been better managed under the previous Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government – a point he said was implicitly acknowledged by some current officials during the briefing.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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