Pakistani government manipulating economic numbers?
Govt policy responsible for distorted figures: National economy By Sabihuddin Ghausi
KARACHI, Jan 25: The Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) has become a punching bag for all the functionaries of the present government who do not miss any opportunity to ridicule the official statisticians for reporting or misreporting the overall economic performance, import-export figures, population census, inflation indices, social indicators, etc.
On Tuesday, prime minister’s adviser on finance and economic affairs Dr Salman Shah found such an opportunity during a meeting with Karachi industrialists when he disclosed that the government was soon to take a policy decision on the FBS. The bureau was blamed for failing to maintain schedule of reports and even the delayed reports were wrong.
Before going for restructuring of the FBS, the government needs to answer a question: what are its priorities? Does it sincerely and seriously want dissemination of correct information and data on the national economy and on social indicators? What is more important for the government — an unlimited number of security agencies and law enforcers or a single well-funded, well-equipped and efficient agency that gives all the data, information, figures within the prescribed time?
In the existing power structure and social culture, the lowest level employee of the Customs and other tax agencies enjoys much more clout and authority than a senior officer of the FBS. The FBS never gets proper reply to their queries in time, even from the government agencies. The private sector does not like to share information with others.
There is a perpetual mistrust between the people and the government, between the businessmen and the government, and between various sections of the society. So much so, that in the population census, there are instances where the number of womenfolk and children is not given. This is not an administrative issue for which the FBS should be blamed but it is a social issue for which the government has to adopt some strategy.
These questions are being asked because the military rules do not digest truth easily. The late Gen Zia-ul-Haq stopped the economists from monitoring economic indicators at the provincial and regional levels. This was because the separation of East Pakistan haunted the military dictator who feared that monitoring of economic indicators at the provincial and regional levels would strengthen the hands of separatists.
Call it an irony that the IMF, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADP) now want monitoring of the economic indicators at the provincial and regional level in Pakistan. The World Bank in its recent report on the Punjab economy has calculated the size of Punjab’s economy.
But a dark side portray of the economy was despised. The FBS came under fire of the military government functionaries in 2001, when its report based on a household survey of income and expenditure found that the poverty situation in Pakistan had aggravated because of the policy focus only on the revenue generation and bridging the budgetary gap, while showing a contemptuous disregard for equity and justice in resource distribution.
This report was suppressed by the government on the ground that there were technical errors and it needed further processing. But unofficial explanation was that the urban and rural samples worked out for the survey were erratic and were picked up from the poor areas. Since then, this report was never made public, though the Economic Survey of 2001-02 promised an update income-expenditure survey report. But a World Bank report gave a full account of increasing poverty levels in the country. This time it was an Indian lady economist, Tara Vishwanath, leader of the World Bank survey team, for giving such a report that put the military government on the spot.
In the following years, all top level functionaries of the military and civilian governments claimed of reversing the poverty trend, increasing employment opportunities, high growth, rising industrial production, increasing import of machinery and raw material, rise in investment, but all the international agencies — the IMF, World Bank and ADP — came out with their respective perception reports from time to time to belie all these official claims.
Changing the base-year from 1980-81 to 2000-01 for computing various indices was a government decision. It was accepted by all, but the methodology adopted for this purpose was found to be lacking transparency. There are legitimate questions as to how sustainable is the claim of phenomenal industrial production growth in the country. Energy consumption in the country was not compatible with the industrial growth. The customs duty collection remains far behind the rising imports and the nine per cent ratio of taxes with the GDP does not match the 8.4 per cent growth in the national economy.
These questions are addressed to the government and not to the FBS. Whatever the FBS indices reflect, the fact is that government’s total reliance on a free for all bank credit policy in last three years, an extra liberal import of everything under the sun — sugar, wheat, pulses, vegetables, honey, dairy products, beverages — has stretched country’s balance of trade to a point where the rupee is coming under increasing pressure. Pakistani market remained dominated by the sellers and buyers remained helpless.
The government functionaries complain that there are no trained statisticians and analysts in Pakistan. But how come the education in statistics has become an un-surmountable problem like Kalabagh dam for the government. Various universities in Pakistan — the Lahore University of Management Sciences, Institute of Business Administration in Karachi — and Delhi School of Economics and the world-known educational institutions in neighbouring India offer and can provide such facilities.
KARACHI, Jan 25: The Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) has become a punching bag for all the functionaries of the present government who do not miss any opportunity to ridicule the official statisticians for reporting or misreporting the overall economic performance, import-export figures, population census, inflation indices, social indicators, etc.
On Tuesday, prime minister’s adviser on finance and economic affairs Dr Salman Shah found such an opportunity during a meeting with Karachi industrialists when he disclosed that the government was soon to take a policy decision on the FBS. The bureau was blamed for failing to maintain schedule of reports and even the delayed reports were wrong.
Before going for restructuring of the FBS, the government needs to answer a question: what are its priorities? Does it sincerely and seriously want dissemination of correct information and data on the national economy and on social indicators? What is more important for the government — an unlimited number of security agencies and law enforcers or a single well-funded, well-equipped and efficient agency that gives all the data, information, figures within the prescribed time?
In the existing power structure and social culture, the lowest level employee of the Customs and other tax agencies enjoys much more clout and authority than a senior officer of the FBS. The FBS never gets proper reply to their queries in time, even from the government agencies. The private sector does not like to share information with others.
There is a perpetual mistrust between the people and the government, between the businessmen and the government, and between various sections of the society. So much so, that in the population census, there are instances where the number of womenfolk and children is not given. This is not an administrative issue for which the FBS should be blamed but it is a social issue for which the government has to adopt some strategy.
These questions are being asked because the military rules do not digest truth easily. The late Gen Zia-ul-Haq stopped the economists from monitoring economic indicators at the provincial and regional levels. This was because the separation of East Pakistan haunted the military dictator who feared that monitoring of economic indicators at the provincial and regional levels would strengthen the hands of separatists.
Call it an irony that the IMF, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADP) now want monitoring of the economic indicators at the provincial and regional level in Pakistan. The World Bank in its recent report on the Punjab economy has calculated the size of Punjab’s economy.
But a dark side portray of the economy was despised. The FBS came under fire of the military government functionaries in 2001, when its report based on a household survey of income and expenditure found that the poverty situation in Pakistan had aggravated because of the policy focus only on the revenue generation and bridging the budgetary gap, while showing a contemptuous disregard for equity and justice in resource distribution.
This report was suppressed by the government on the ground that there were technical errors and it needed further processing. But unofficial explanation was that the urban and rural samples worked out for the survey were erratic and were picked up from the poor areas. Since then, this report was never made public, though the Economic Survey of 2001-02 promised an update income-expenditure survey report. But a World Bank report gave a full account of increasing poverty levels in the country. This time it was an Indian lady economist, Tara Vishwanath, leader of the World Bank survey team, for giving such a report that put the military government on the spot.
In the following years, all top level functionaries of the military and civilian governments claimed of reversing the poverty trend, increasing employment opportunities, high growth, rising industrial production, increasing import of machinery and raw material, rise in investment, but all the international agencies — the IMF, World Bank and ADP — came out with their respective perception reports from time to time to belie all these official claims.
Changing the base-year from 1980-81 to 2000-01 for computing various indices was a government decision. It was accepted by all, but the methodology adopted for this purpose was found to be lacking transparency. There are legitimate questions as to how sustainable is the claim of phenomenal industrial production growth in the country. Energy consumption in the country was not compatible with the industrial growth. The customs duty collection remains far behind the rising imports and the nine per cent ratio of taxes with the GDP does not match the 8.4 per cent growth in the national economy.
These questions are addressed to the government and not to the FBS. Whatever the FBS indices reflect, the fact is that government’s total reliance on a free for all bank credit policy in last three years, an extra liberal import of everything under the sun — sugar, wheat, pulses, vegetables, honey, dairy products, beverages — has stretched country’s balance of trade to a point where the rupee is coming under increasing pressure. Pakistani market remained dominated by the sellers and buyers remained helpless.
The government functionaries complain that there are no trained statisticians and analysts in Pakistan. But how come the education in statistics has become an un-surmountable problem like Kalabagh dam for the government. Various universities in Pakistan — the Lahore University of Management Sciences, Institute of Business Administration in Karachi — and Delhi School of Economics and the world-known educational institutions in neighbouring India offer and can provide such facilities.
posted by India News Watch at 1:11 PM
<< Home