Bureau allays fears over statistics bill
By Prasetyohadi
JAKARTA (JP): The misgivings expressed about a bill on statistics, which the government is currently drafting, are groundless, said a senior official of the Central Bureau of Statistics.
Sri Budianti Sukmadi, the bureau's deputy for planning and statistical analysis, told The Jakarta Post Saturday that the bill was meant to improve the 1960 Law on Statistics.
She said it was not meant to restrict researchers producing or using statistics.
The bureau's request for the House of Representatives to prioritize the bill once it has been presented has nothing to do with the May general election, as some people fear, she added.
Although the bill has not been finalized, bureau officials sought the House's assurance last week that once presented, the bill would be enacted by April 1997.
The bill is being scrutinized by the National Development Planning Board.
Bureau officials said that if the deadline was not met, the bill would be debated again in October 1997 by the new House, formed by the May general election.
The bureau's suggestion to expedite debate on the bill has drawn criticism, with some people saying they feared the new law on statistics could be used to stop polling and surveying by the Independent Election Monitoring Committee.
The committee's head of operations, Paskah Irianto, said the bureau's move to rush the bill through the House indicated political motives.
"You cannot rush the House to legislate a bill," Paskah said, stressing that the public should given as much time as possible to discuss and review the bill.
The bureau, the government's leading agency for researching and publishing statistics, was assigned to draft the new bill by the government.
The main objective of the bill is to ensure that all statistics produced and published in Indonesia are reliable and intelligible for users and the public.
Sri Budianti said that in the past, many published statistical surveys had failed to inform the public on their shortcomings. And in some cases, researchers had drawn conclusions from surveys involving very small samples.
"A survey involving 100 respondents was used to reflect the entire nation," she said, citing one example.
She said that several agencies besides the Central Bureau of Statistics had published national unemployment statistics, causing confusion.
Among the bureau's major surveys are the population census every 10 years, the monthly consumer price index and other leading economic indicators.
Sri Budianti said the bureau had proposed that in future the researchers, producing and using statistics, report to the bureau so that the validity of their surveys could be monitored.
This clause does not exist in the 1960 law.
Mely G. Tan, a senior researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, told The Jakarta Post Saturday that she was perplexed by the proposed requirement.
"Just about all research involves the use of statistics," she said.
She said researchers were already required to submit their proposed works to the Council of National Research at the Office of the State Minister of Research and Technology.
Sri Budianti said the agency was also proposing stiffer penalties for violations, including incorrect application of methodologies, refusal to answer questions in surveys of national interest and false statistical manipulation.
The 1960 law stipulates a maximum fine of Rp 10,000 (US$4.25). Under the new law, this is expected to rise to between Rp 25 million (US$10,638) and Rp 100 million, Sri Budianti said.