Wednesday, March 29, 2006IMF accept The Bahamas' national accounts statistics
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has accepted the National Accounts Statistics produced by the Department of Statistics, Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance Sen. the Hon. James Smith said on Monday, March 27.
"This might well be the first time in over 30 year," Minister Smith said at the Department of Statistics' seminar for senior public servants.
Minister Smith said the IMF's acceptance of the National Accounts Statistics is a result of a modernisation project carried out by the Ministry of Finance and the Department of Statistics with the assistance of the IMF and Statistics Canada.
Minister Smith noted that over the past few years, the Department of Statistics has re-organised itself and has upgraded and expanded its capacity to provide useful and relevant information to both the domestic and international community.
He said in this modern and increasingly important information technology-driven world, it is imperative that all nations are in a position to make instantly available, a wide range of data on national accounts, import and export trade statistics, balance of payments; fiscal and monetary information with respect to national debt, budgetary deficits, money supply; interest rates and credit; and labour force data, including unemployment figures.
"Over the past few decades, The Bahamas was not among the most prolific information providers in the region or even in the world," Minister Smith said.
He said many international data banks, including the United Nations, the IMF, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Organization of American States, CARICOM and the Caribbean Development Bank would often place the symbols "NA" or "Not Available" in the column representing The Bahamas' contribution to international, hemispheric or regional data collection effort.
"No country can even begin to develop realistic socio-economic programmes and plans unless and until it has in place an adequate statistical system which produces, at a minimum, good quality, reliable, timely and relevant data on the social and economic conditions existing in that country," Minister Smith said.
"Up until recently," he added, "there was a tremendous gap in The Bahamas between the demand for universally available information and the supply or availability of that information locally."
The Minister said that in an attempt to close that gap, a considered and deliberate effort was made by the Ministry of Finance and the Department of Statistics with the assistance of the IMF and Statistics Canada to put in place the necessary resources - equipment, manpower and training.
As a result of that collaborative effort, he said, the Information Technology system at the Department was upgraded utilising the latest fiber-optic technology.
A state-of-the-art database using the latest data processing software was installed by experienced software developers who were contracted for that purpose, the Minister said. Additionally, he said, state-of-the-art scanning hardware and software was installed as well as a modern security system to adequately address confidentiality concerns. "I am pleased to report today that we are already reaping the benefits of this modernisation project. For a start, the IMF has now accepted the National Accounts Statistics produced by the Department of Statistics," Minister Smith said.
He noted the Department has also published the 2001 Living Conditions Survey as well as the recent 2003-2004 Occupation and Wages Report
.
But Minister Smith cautioned that despite the notable progress in the Department to date, the real work has just begun," said Minister Smith.
He said statistical data is only as helpful as its usage, and stressed the importance of the use of statistics by the various ministries, departments and agencies represented at the workshop in meeting the development goals of The Bahamas.
"It is expected that at the end of this workshop, many of your organisations may recognise the urgency and usefulness of developing permanent mechanisms for collecting and making available statistical information for use in the national development process," Minister Smith said.
He said the critical value of statistical information for national development goals became clearly apparent in the 2001 Living Conditions Survey.
Minister Smith said the survey confirmed the suspicion that children from low or no-income families are less likely to attend pre-school or a tertiary institution and those poor children are also more likely to leave school without a qualification.
"With this concrete knowledge of the situation, the Government's programmes, which are aimed at stamping out illiteracy and eradicating poverty, could now be more appropriately targeted," he said.
"As it is, this kind of information, which is so essential to good policy development, is found in every Ministry, Department or Agency of Government," Minister Smith said.
"What is needed, therefore, is a more systematic and coherent way to collect, collate and make available that information to the policy makers and the wider society." He said the need for reliable statistical information extends beyond the Government into the private sector and non-governmental organisations.
Minister Smith commended the Chamber of Commerce for its contribution to the project by entering into a partnership arrangement with the Department of Statistics to collect data from the private sector.
"A private-public partnership is critical to the collection and dissemination of reliable national statistics," he said.
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