Ginandjar expects more from BPS

Ginandjar expects more from BPS

JAKARTA (JP): The government's top planning chief Ginandjar Kartasasmita said yesterday he expects a lot more from the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) toward supporting the government's development program.

The State Minister of National Development Planning Ginandjar said that the bureau must be more professional in collecting and providing accurate data.

The bureau should be aware of the significant role of statistics in national development, he said during a meeting with the staff of the BPS.

"The weak coordination among units of data collectors has often caused duplication in their work," said Ginandjar, who also heads the National Development Planning Board (Bappenas).

He blamed ignorance for the poor level of participation of the public and corporations in surveys and censuses conducted by BPS. This, he said, contributed to the low quality of data collected.

BPS Chief Soegito said the low budget allocated by the government for the statistics agency has prevented it from embarking on more ambitious programs.

The current budget is too small to run such a big bureau employing over 12,300 employees, he told Ginandjar.

The low salaries offered by the agency has also made it difficult for the agency to recruit people with high academic qualifications who are essential for BPS's task.

Already, there are signs that many of bureau's staff with masters and doctorate degrees are being lured by private companies, he said. Some have in fact already moved, he added.

Ginandjar said Bappenas in particular relies on the statistics agency to provide data about the level of poverty in Indonesia. He stressed that these data should be continually updated.

He said not just the government, but the business community also makes decisions and plans based on statistics, including economic indicators.

Soegito earlier defended the accuracy of the statistics supplied by his agency and dismissed as groundless the allegation that some of the figures were often fixed to suit the needs of the government.

"We gather and process data without any obligation to satisfy a particular party," he told newsmen at a seminar on the poverty alleviation program on Thursday.

The BPS computerized data bank is fully accessible to anyone interested in checking data and many analysts and officials from other governmental departments are already using this facility, he said.

He acknowledged, though, that some analysts may interpret the BPS data in a different way or may sometimes dispute the figures. "Nonetheless, such differences of views should not immediately be construed as doubts about the credibility and reliability of our data," Soegito argued.

Any particular data, he added, could mean different things to different users depending on the aspect of their analyses.

"We should analyze particular data in view of the methodology used in the data gathering and processing," he said, adding that the users could check the methods applied by bureau in its data gathering and processing.

Soegito recalled that several analysts had previously harbored some doubts about the reliability of the BPS data on the consumer price index that measures the rate of inflation.

"But those doubts were removed after we showed them the very bulky document that contained the United Nations-recommended methodology we have always used," he said.

Soegito said he was concerned that a number of analysts sometimes trusted the World Bank data on Indonesian economic indicators more.

Those analysts might not know that the World Bank data are always derived from and are based on the BPS statistical data, he pointed out.

" Our statistics officials, right down from the subdistrict offices up to the headquarters, are liable to severe administrative penalties for tampering with or fabricating data," Soegito said. (rms/vin)