Government interference undermines PBS independence: experts

The economic data produced by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics is not fully autonomous as envisaged in the original law. Economic experts argue that if the bureau is transformed into an autonomous body, the data produced by it would not only be reliable but also be helpful to government to formulate viable policies on different subjects.
Sakib Sherani, former Principal Economic Adviser at Ministry of Finance and member at the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, told Business Recorder on Thursday that the government had interfered twice in the bureau affairs which undermined its independence.
"If the bureau is to be made an autonomous body, the finance minister should not be chairman of its Governing Council and secretary finance should not be its member." Sherani said that the government should also have appointed a technocrat as chief statistician instead of a bureaucrat to ensure independence of the institution. "A bureaucrat cannot perform the job of research and analysis as required by the institution," he added.
The present chief statistician of the bureau, Asif Bajwa, was special secretary finance at the time of his appointment. Sherani said, "If the bureau is made an independent institution, it will also help the government make economic policies based on 'factual data. At the moment, people do not rely on data produced by the bureau on inflation and believe that it is tampered by the government," he added.
The bureau was created as an autonomous body in December 2011 to produce credible and independent economic data that would be trusted globally. To ensure its independence, the law provided for the establishment of a statistics fund. Sherani said that the government might ensure smooth funding to the institution as it was doing for numerous other autonomous organisations.
On 12 November 2013, the National Assembly adopted a resolution asking the government to take steps for functioning of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics as an autonomous body. Dr Abid Suleri, an economist and Executive Director at Sustainable Development Policy Institute, said that Pakistan Bureau of Statistics is like a laboratory where one can only expect correct results, if a test is carried out professionally and independently. "The economic figures presented by the government are not believable because everybody knows the numbers are manipulated to show good performance of the government institutions," he said.
Suleri said that position of the chief statistician in the bureau should be a tenured post so that he can work independently and without any fear of being removed or replaced by the government. In numerous developed economies of the world, the bureaus of statistics have been autonomous institutions. Chief Statistician of Canada Munir Sheikh resigned from his position in July 2010 after the alleged intervention of the government in working of the statistics bureau.
A senior official of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics confirmed to this correspondent routine interference of the government in working of the bureau on condition of anonymity. "The governments have their own compulsions and priorities; therefore, the data is manipulated to show all good to the public," he added.
Talking to Business Recorder, Director General Pakistan Bureau of Statistics Akram Janjua said that it might take two to three years to make the bureau fully autonomous as the process was underway. "Like every other step, it has also its own merits and demerits to make the bureau autonomous," he said, adding it depends on the government how it proceeds forward.