Today is Caribbean Statistics Day.
And the theme for this year’s observance is “Connecting the world with data we can trust.”
But do you trust the data that you are presented with from the Central Statistical Office, the body that is charged with the responsibility for taking censuses, collecting, compiling, analysing and publishing statistical information related to all the social and economic activities in this country?
Well, if your answer to that question is no, then you need not feel too bad about it because this country’s director of statistics Sean O’Brien does not feel the CSO is living up to its mandate.
And he more than anyone should know.
“We must ask ourselves: ‘Is the CSO really fulfilling this mandate?’ And I, as the chief statistician of T&T, I can tell you, no, not really,” O’Brien said during an event hosted last December by the United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organisation.
O’Brien said the way the system currently functions the CSO is obstructed from gathering the data and disseminating it.
“We at the CSO cannot provide the government with educational statistics unless we have assistance from the Ministry of Education. We cannot provide health statistics in the absence of the Ministry of Health,” he stated.
“A large part of my job is to be taking the blame for not supplying data that I don’t get in the first place,” O’Brien stated.
And as such O’Brien said an overhaul is welcomed.
That overhaul is expected to come in the form of the National Statistical Institute of T&T (NSITT).
“The CSO is to be transformed into the National Statistical Institute, which is envisioned to be more legislatively potent, a more autonomous, more independent body that would have the power to more effectively co-ordinate the national statistical system,” he stated.
Finance Minister Colm Imbert announced the expected transformation in his budget presentation earlier this month.
“Timely economic and business decision-making will also be driven by the transformation by the Ministry of Planning and Development of the Central Statistical Office into the National Statistical Institute,” Imbert said.
“The legislation to create this modern statistical institute, which requires the support of the Opposition, has also languished in the Parliament for several years. But to compete in today’s world, publication of trade and economic data, including employment and financial data must occur in real-time,” he said.
When you visit the CSO’s website the majority of the “vital statistics” listed are only updated to as recent as two years ago.
Other data are even more out of date.
The purpose of the NSITT Bill, 2018 is to establish a National Statistical Institute in T&T and also to repeal and replace the Statistics Act, Chap. 19:02.
The Bill would be inconsistent with Sections 4 and 5 of the Constitution of the Republic of T&T and is therefore required to be passed by a special majority of three-fifths of the members of each House.
So the government will need support from the Opposition to pass the necessary legislation to establish the NSITT.
Economist Dr Roger Hosein said the NSITT is urgently needed in this country.
“The NSITT to me is as important to the development of T&T as some see the reduction in the crime rate and therefore I urge policymakers to work together in a manner and form to bring about the NSITT, just as we are trying to fix the Ease of Doing Business ranking for T&T in the shortest period possible,” Hosein said.
Hosein said “information asymmetry” is a serious problem in any economy developed or developing country.
“With information asymmetry what happens is that information remains in the hands of one group and out of the hands of another group and therefore it skews the decision-making process in favour of the group with the information,” he said.
“That’s not something we should encourage and indeed it is something that the government should try to change in the shortest space of time and this is where the CSO has a critical role to play in the economic development process of any country,” Hosein said.
Hosein lamented the outdated information being presented in critical data such as the Continuous Sampling Survey of the Population and the Annual Statistical Digest saying it is “ridiculous.”
Lack of data leading to “guesstimates”
He said the lack of information would lead to “guesstimates” rather than concrete, verifiable information.
“I say this because I am concerned about some of the numbers I see coming out with respect to GDP so for example in 2020 it was stated that the economy contracted -6.8 per cent but for the months of March to October we are hearing that almost 100,000 people in the entertainment sector were basically unemployed and that is almost 1/6 of the labour force,” Hosein said.
“So if almost 1/6 of the labour force is idle and a significant chunk of the associated capital is not employed then I would have thought that the GDP contraction would have been even larger but even so rather than leaving the actual number up to guesstimation as I am doing here it would be good to have actual data from the firms that are surveyed to help with this process and we would need to know as the public what could be done to improve on that survey of establishment results,” he said.
In February last year, a Joint Select Committee of Parliament chaired by Planning Minister Camille Robinson-Regis was established to consider and report on the bill.
“In T&T several complaints by the users and other stakeholders of official statistics about the type and quality of data actually emanate from weaknesses in the National Statistical System,” a report from the Planning Ministry presented to the JSC stated.
“To the extent that weaknesses of the NSS remain unrecognised and their warning signs consequently disregard; then the official statistics needed for bringing sustainable development into fruition will remain sub-optimal despite the numerous and continuing improvements,” it stated.
According to the United Nations Handbook of Statistical Organisations “the quality of official statistics depends largely on the cooperation of citizens, enterprises and other respondents in providing appropriate and reliable data to statistical agencies.”
CSO blocked from BIR data
One of the main issues affecting the CSO is that it has been debarred from collecting data from the Board of Inland Revenue.
“This has severely hampered the Statistical Office from the efficient compilation of gross domestic production data using the expenditure approach, known in statistical circles as GDPE,” the reports stated.
“The accurate and timely production of GDPE fosters greater economic transparency and thereby assists developing nations such as T&T in securing foreign direct investment as well as lower costs of international borrowing,” it stated.
The report said that the inability of the CSO to collect data on Value Added Tax from the BIR “has resulted in GDP figures exhibiting less robustness than similar data that emanate from countries that devote far less resources towards the production of official statistics and has increased the response burden on establishments.”
As a result, the report stated that the transformation of the CSO to the NSITT will “bear substantial and far-reaching benefits to the people of T&T.”
BIR stated that the last time it provided data to the CSO was ten years ago.
“During discussions with the CSO and BIR in about 2008-2009, the CSO informed the BIR that it could no longer accept the aggregate information that was being provided by the BIR and that it needed more specific taxpayer information. The BIR informed the CSO that under Section 4 of the Income Tax Act, the BIR could not provide the requested information to the CSO,” it stated.
On Tuesday the world observes World Statistics Day.
“Statistical data drives a myriad of decisions that impact the lives of the people of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) and worldwide.
“In this period of the Novel Coronavirus global pandemic, COVID-19, statistics are required to track the status of the pandemic, and its economic and social impact, reinforcing its value to society,” Caricom Secretary-General Irwin La Rocque has said.
“Statistics as a science of learning provided an essential service, through making available data for decision-making in the face of uncertainty,” La Rocque stated.
La Rocque said the effect on trade, government revenues, unemployment as well as access to education for children below the poverty line are some of the issues statistics could help governments know how to better tackle the issues arising from the pandemic.
“Sound policy decisions by governments on restrictions to be put in place, on the closing or reopening of national borders, schools and certain business places, will only be possible by utilising trusted data from the statistical offices and systems,” La Rocque said.