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Saifur smells rats in food figures

BSS, UNB, Dhaka
Finance and Planning Minister M Saifur Rahman yesterday called for proper investigations into "major doctoring of national statistics" in the last couple of years, aimed at projecting the country as self-reliant in food.
"Every year we import a huge quantity of food… it is people of the country, neither ghosts nor rats, who consume the imported food," he said while inaugurating the two-day
eighth National Statistical Conference, organised by the Bangladesh Statistical Association (BSA), at the National Museum auditorium.
"Statistics are fundamental for any planning process, but wrong statistics are harmful."
The government is now reexamining the development statistics of FY95, FY96 and FY97, as many
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of those were "manipulated in narrow perspectives".
He said the previous government claimed that the country was selfsufficient in food, at the same time letters of credit (L/Cs) worth Tk 700800 crore were opened every year for rice import. "How could these two different statistics be reconciled?"
It would be frustrating if Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) is seen losing its objectivity due to intrusion of "narrow sectarian interests", Saifur Rahman said.
Citing instances of mismatches in planning due to wrong or inadequate statistics, he said that the government had liberalised sugar import after the Industries Ministry estimated that import of 300,000 tons of sugar would meet the local demand.
But import L/Cs were opened for over 500,000 tons in last six months, proving that the demand estimate was wrong, he pointed out.
The minister said that same thing happened in case of Soybean oil, import of which is unabated and unlimited. Import L/Cs worth Tk 500600 crore are opened for soybean oil, but nobody knows where it goes, he said, drawing the attention of BBS statisticians to many such areas that need proper data.
He said authentic statistcs are inevitable before planning for each and every social or economic sector -- be it literacy, nutrition, health, industry or agriculture.
Final PRSP must base on accurate data on all relevant sectors, he felt.
BSA president Dr M Kabir said abolition of the Statistics Division affected statistical functions of the BBS and weakened the national statistical agency that provides basic data for planning and research of the government and non-government agencies.
The Statistics Division was merged with the Planning Division last year.
Planning Secretary Badiur
Rahman said lack of a sense of direction leads to inclusion of huge number of projects in development plan that can never be implemented given the budgetary allocation.
Implementation of all projects so far inducted in ADP would require Tk 109,000 crore, whereas ADP size is a mere Tk 19,200 crore, he said.
BSA secretary general Abu Zafar also spoke at the session.