Government had moved speedily with the SA Statistics Council to avoid a recurrence in any calculation error such as the recent one that occurred in the CPI and CPIX, says South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel.
Speaking during the budget policy debate on Statistics SA (Stats SA) in the National Council of Provinces on Thursday, Manuel said Statistics South Africa must rise to the challenge by producing accurate, reliable and timely statistics.
While pointing out that accurate statistics as something of an “oxymoron”, he nevertheless told members of the second House of Parliament: “It is for this reason (the need for reliable statistics) that we have moved as speedily as possible with the Statistics Council to obviate the recurrence in any calculation error. It is perhaps consoling to note that although it cannot be condoned, such an error is not unique to Stats SA.”
“Other agencies in the world have committed similar or worse errors. In most jurisdictions where errors have occurred, the agencies have publicly admitted the error and in a transparent manner have implemented corrective measures to prevent its recurrence.”
“As Stats SA we have been open and transparent in acknowledging and correcting the error. Furthermore, the Statistics Council and Stats SA are currently working together on a protocol to ensure that the integrity and quality of our statistics is never put to question again.”
Manuel said Statistics SA had identified a skills shortage in the area of official statistics “which requires redress”. It was sobering that only the University of Witwatersrand offered courses in official statistics “and this is in the limited area of data fusion and data mining”.
African National Congress MP Qedani Dorothy Mahlangu responded to Manuel’s remarks by saying that it was interesting that such a fuss was made in the media about the recent CPIX error but the best PPI results in 30 years hardly achieved the same effect.
“People are hardly making a noise about these things.”
April’s CPI and CPIX figures were delayed in April to May after the public drew attention to outdated rental figures overstating inflation. – I-Net Bridge