BBS must be kept out of political interference to restore public confidence
The crisis of trust became more acute during the fallen Hasina government’s tenure.
As a result, after the fall of her government and the formation of an interim government, there was a strong demand for reform of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).
To this end, many initiatives were taken, one of which was the formation of an expert task force committee.
Meanwhile, the task force committee formed to strengthen BBS last month presented its recommendations. The committee’s report was released on Monday at a World Statistics Day event organized by BBS.
Reportedly, a four-member implementation committee has already been formed to implement the final report. It is expected that initiatives will be taken to actually implement the recommendations.
However, the interim government has so far failed to take any visible and effective initiative to reform the BBS.
That is why distrust in statistics has not been eliminated yet. It is worth repeating that proper policies cannot be formulated without accurate statistics.
The ousted government used the organization to create and present inaccurate and questionable statistics on every sector of the economy, from population to GDP growth.
As a result, there were high expectations that the government would take steps to correct the questionable statistics or restore confidence in them.
But that did not happen. Rather, the organization has been publishing information even after the July coup, for which it has repeatedly faced criticism.
Analysts have also been saying that while the previous structure of statistics is being maintained, there is a lack of overall initiative to correct all the exaggerated statistics of the past.
Even today, the agency is still unable to come out of its previous exaggerated economic statistics.
The economic policies of the government and the state are determined based on the data and information from the BBS conducted in various sectors of the country.
As a result, if there are questions about the credibility of these data and there is a crisis of trust, the policies and strategies based on them also become questionable.
Again, Bangladesh’s position in international statistics is not promising either. It is in the weakest position in South Asia in terms of statistical capacity.
BBS should be restructured as an autonomous, efficient and transparent institution, free from project dependency and political influence.
It is hoped that it will be possible to verify, analyze and publish information free from government influence. In addition, training, use of technology and professionalism must be ensured to increase capacity at the field level.