BPS chief exits with snipe at President Abdurrahman

JAKARTA (JP): Minutes before relinquishing his post as Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) chief, Sugito Suwito fired back at President Abdurrahman Wahid, saying he was being truthful in scaling back his economic growth projection.

Sugito blasted the President on Wednesday for his comment that he lowered the projection out of spite because he knew he was about to be replaced.

"It has nothing to with that. I'm 61 years old, and therefore I must retire," he said.

The feud erupted after the President chided Sugito last week for saying that economic growth this year would likely not exceed 1.5 percent. Abdurrahman, known as Gus Dur, said Sugito was frustrated at being replaced.

Abdurrahman cited increasing exports and other encouraging signs which he believed would boost growth to about 4 percent.

Speaking to journalists before the transfer of duty ceremony to Soedarti Surbakti at the State Palace, Sugito said the President should blame political instability for the less than bright economic outlook.

Sugito acknowledged that BPS previously announced that economic growth would reach 4 percent this year, but it revised the figures to factor in the deteriorating national political situation.

Abdurrahman's address at Wednesday's ceremony seemed to contradict his comments from last week. He said that during the New Order regime, BPS often issued biased and misleading statistical data to appease the ruler.

"During the old regime our statistics were often manipulated for its vested interests," Abdurrahman said.

Soedarti, formerly Sugito's deputy, defended her predecessor.

She said a 1.5 percent growth estimate was based on objective calculations.

"Whoever holds the position, the result will be the same, because our work is not based merely on intuition, but empirical data," she told journalists before the ceremony.

"So there is no political motive behind it."

Abdurrahman in his address at the ceremony praised Soedarti as a professional bureaucrat and expressed confidence that she would be able to produce a better performance than her predecessor in producing reliable and accurate data. (prb)