KARACHI, Dec 11: The government has drafted a law for merger of three attached departments of the Statistics Division which are Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS), Population Census Organisation (PCO) and the Agricultural Census Organisation (ACO) under a restructuring plan and recruitment of top positions will be made through open competition.

This was announced by the Finance Ministry in response to an item “Mismatched data raises doubts over credibility” that appeared in Dawn of December 7 issue. In this rebuttal, the government announced training of 1,021 officers. Out of 58 courses in different areas of statistics, 24 courses were conducted by international experts. Under GTZ project, 159 computers, 72 motorcycles and other IT equipment was provided to the FBS.

For the recruitment of top positions, a committee constituted by the prime minister has interviewed the candidates for Chief Statistician. The committee has sent its recommendations to the prime minister.

The Finance Ministry’s rebuttal also addresses the issue of differences of export and import figures of the FBS and State Bank of Pakistan and says that it was taken up by a committee under the chairmanship of the then finance minister for finance comprising representatives from Central Board of Revenue, SBP and FBS.

It gives four explanations of methodology of data compilation by the FBS and SBP for import and export. It points out that FBS figures are recorded at the time of movement of goods out of Pakistan or into Pakistan while SBP accounts them on transfer of ownership of money. The time lag is between one to six months in the transfer of money and physical exit of goods.