The Senate passed the General Statistics (Re-organisation) Bill 2011 on Tuesday. The bill has been passed to allow for the reorganisation of statistical system in the country with establishment of the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) and merger of certain organisations.
According to the rationale provided for the bill, it has been said Pakistan needs re-structuring and re-organisation of the Federal Statistical System to be more responsive to the national requirements for which increased autonomy and credibility are vital to ensure statistical capacity building and improve coordination and integration of various data collecting agencies.
The improvement would help the country’s economy perform in a better way, the statement of the objects and the reasons for the bill stated. According to the bill, the Federal Bureau of Statistics, Population Census Organisation and Agricultural Census Organisation would be merged into the PBS, which would be headed by a chief statistician, to be appointed by the federal government.
It has also been stated that there would be a governing council of the PBS to supervise and control the affairs of the bureau. The finance minister, or in case of his absence, the prime minister’s adviser on finance, would be the ex-officio chairman whereas secretary statistics division, chief statistician and four people from the private sector, to be appointed by the federal government, would be members of the PBS.
The chief statistician would also act ex-officio as secretary of the bureau.
