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Political interventions and lack of independence in the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) has created a muddle on its data and statistics, discussants at a taskforce meeting said on Wednesday.
Besides, the intervention from the line ministry and other public agencies and bureaucrats had also affected the strength and capability of the specialised statistical services, especially generation quality data, according to them.
The government-formed "Taskforce for the actionable recommendations to reform and strengthen the BBS" sat with media professionals, who are considered as important stakeholders of utilising the public data and statistics.
The meeting was presided over by the taskforce head Dr Hossain Zillur Rahman, a noted economist and also Executive Chairman of the Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC).
Dr Hossain Zillur said the BBS as a national statistical organisation (NSO) should have full independence and it should get regular fund (from the revenue budget) to prepared some "core data" like GDP, inflation, population, HIES etc.
But, the state-run BBS is now producing data under different projects, which is unfortunate, he said.
The interim government formed the eight-member taskforce, aiming to bring about reforms of the BBS and the taskforce is supposed to submit its report by next month (August).
Former BBS director general Mohammad Abdul Wazed, Executive Director of Center for Policy Dialogue (CPD) Fahmida Khatun, Chairman of Research and Policy Integration for Development (RAPID) Mohammad Abdur Razzak, Professor of Dhaka University and President of Bangladesh Statistical Association Syed Shahadat Hossain, Professor of Population Sciences Department of Dhaka University Mohammad Moinul Islam, Professor of Economics Department of Dhaka University Atanu Rabbani and Research Director of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) Mohammad Yunus are also the members of the taskforce.
Dr Hossain Zillur Rahman said three issues including availability of information, quality of information and transparency would get priorities in their upcoming report.
Stating that the taskforce will make recommendations for keeping the organisation away from the 'project culture', the economist said, the BBS's 'project culture' has become a problem.
He also said since the BBS utilises most of the data from different ministries and government agencies, those should be coordinated with BBS for ensuing their quality.
About the BBS's capability, he said about 50 per cent of its posts remain vacant and its specialised cadre officers cannot be upgraded beyond 4th grade in the public services, which are hampering the works of the NSO.
Dr Rahman said the BBS has already been asked to present detail data on critical indicators such as inflation and GDP in a more transparent way for public understanding and trust.
The BBS's data should be more user friendly for the stakeholders and audiences, he added.
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