Falsification of official statistics on decrease, says NBS chief

Correspondent recently in Kigoma

e Director General of National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Dr Albina Chuwa

THE trend shows a significant decline in cases of falsification of government statistics since the enactment of the 2015 Statistics Act, the Director General of National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Dr Albina Chuwa has said.

Speaking to reporters here after inspecting construction of NBS’s building recently, Dr Chuwa said that the law does not restrict any person or institution to engage in production of official statistics. “What is needed is for those engaging in production of official statistics to liaise with NBS in order to ensure the laid down principles and procedures are adhered to,” she said.

Dr Chuwa said NBS was working like any other supervisory or regulatory bodies like National Bureau of Standards (TBS) which regulates anything entering the market in the country. “That is how it is; you can’t enter your products into the market without TBS’s approval.

The same to statistics, they can’t be official without being verified by us (NBS),” she noted. The NBS chief assured the media that the law was open to all stakeholders who were ready to participate in production of official statistics since the bureau could not produce all official statistics.

On the new office building under construction, she said that was part of the government efforts to improve statistical infrastructure to enable production of quality official statistics in the country. She explained that NBS has offices in all regions in mainland Tanzania mostly housed in Regional Commissioner office buildings as the case in Kigoma.

Dr Chuwa pointed out that the role of NBS regional offices was to coordinate production of official statistics in the region and the bureau has now expanded its coverage to district councils to ensure countrywide smooth production of statistics.

She added that “the new office building will provide NBS staff with ideal working condition to serve the region in the sphere of statistics” Situated at government administrative block in Mnarani on the outskirts of Kigoma town, the building which was in the finishing stage has conference hall with the capacity of over 70 people.

“We want to expand the conference hall to cater for more people so that it can serve government and its institutions in the region” she added. Dr Chuwa said construction of the building which was initially funded by Sweden government was expected to be completed by 2020.

The NBS boss was in Kigoma to attend the launching of 2017 Malaria Indicator Survey which was part of the event to mark the International Malaria Day held nationally in Kasulu Kigoma region.