Pakistan Today

Govt forms Pakistan Bureau of Statistics

To give more reliability and authenticity to the official data relating to economy, population, agriculture, trade and other areas, the government announced formation of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics by merging three previous entities which would be managed by professionals. Addressing a press conference on Friday, Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh said government has formed a professional’s lead Governing Council for the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics to produce independent and credible economic data that would be trusted worldwide. He announced the merger of Federal Bureau of Statistics, the Population Census Organisation and the Agriculture Census Organisation to create Pakistan Bureau of Statistics Organisation after the passage of Law by the parliament to establish an autonomous body of statistics.
The independent organisation will be run by an autonomous governing council consist of professional economists and statisticians, said Hafeez Sheikh. Statistics body had been due for the last several years, but pressure from International Monetary Fund (IMF) forced government to step up efforts in that regard. Statistics body and governing council will function autonomously not be answerable to any ministry and will be autonomous in its decisions. Sheikh while answering the questions said legal protection has been given to new organization to secure it from any type of influence. Finance Minister Hafeez Sheikh would be the first Chairman of the Governing Council of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. However, the organisation PBS will be headed by a Chief Statistician who will be hired from the private sector. The advertisements in this regard will be published in important national and international dailies; Hafeez said and added that the Chief Statistician will be hired through proper channel from the private sector. A three member HR Committee formed to interview and appoint the Chief Statistician. Members of the first governing council of PBS are Federal Finance Minister, Secretary Statistics Division, Professor Muhammad Nizamuddin, Vice Chancellor, Gujrat University, Dr Shamshad Akhtar, former Governor SBP, Dr Zeba Sathar Country Director population Council (Pakistan), Dr Naveed Hamid Professor of Economics, Lahore School of Economics, Dr Mehtab Karim, Dr Eshya Mujahid, Mehmood Khan, Mohsin Hassan Khan. The law provides formation of ‘Data Users Council’ to guide and given input in the policies of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. The Users council will include representatives from provincial governments, State Bank, private sector and media. Provision has been made for release and dissemination of data by statistics authority while protecting secrecy of individuals, firms and institutions.
Law also provides for establishment of a statistics fund to ensure financial autonomy to the bureau. Protection has been provided in the draft law to existing employees of the bureau in terms of service and they will be governed by the Civil Servants Act 1973 and its rules and will continue service on same terms and conditions. Moreover, a new Statistics Research and Training Institute (SRTI) would be established in Lahore to train officials of statistical organisations. By establishing independent Statistics organization, authorities hoped to qualify for IMF Special Data Dissemination Standards (SDDS) during current calendar year.

Exit mobile version