THE interim government鈥檚 institution of expert committees to check against any discrepancy in national data, which came to be seriously questioned as being doctored during the Awami League government that was overthrown on August 5, is a good step forward. Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics officials say that they have already set up the committees to help the eight wings of the national statistical office that prepare data on gross domestic product, per capita income, inflation, demography and health, industrial units and labour. With the process still pending a government approval, the statistical office, which was earlier criticised, and its data doubted, both by economists and business establishments for inconsistency, will from now on prepare and disseminate the data of national import on the approval of the expert committees, composed of experts from non-governmental organisations, teachers, public officials and economists. This will dispense with the practice of the need for the approval of political authorities that had been in force during the Awami League government. The World Bank in its report, Bangladesh 鈥� Country Economic Memorandum: Change of Fabric, in 2022 identified the unexplained growth of 3.7 percentage points between 2015 and 2019 that highlighted the doubtful calculation by the Bureau of Statistics.
Standard growth correlates based on international experience explain Bangladesh鈥檚 economic growth reasonably well until the 2010s, as the World Bank reports said, but the gap started widening in the 2010s and the growth remained unexplained in 2015鈥�2019. This is when the Awami League government appears to have started doctoring national data to cosmetically project a high growth and low risks. Economists, however, say that data need to be accurate and dependable as business, plans, the demand and supply of commodities and financial products are invariably connected with data accuracy. Economists say that the positive outcome of the move has already been evident in the August update on inflation for July. The overall inflation increased to 11.66 per cent in July, higher than the 10.9 per cent average inflation in 2010鈥�11. A high food inflation of 14.10 per cent caused the July inflation because of disruption in the supply chain. This shows that the national statistical office has published the real inflation for July, with an increase by about 3.66 percentage points in June鈥揓uly. The Bureau of Statistics director general says that the committee that the interim government set up on August 28 to prepare the 鈥榳hite paper on the state of Bangladesh economy鈥� would highlight the issue of data manipulation, one of the 15 topics that the committee is dealing with, by the Awami League government. Such doctored data have weakened the basis of various projections weak.
Such manipulation of national data has, perhaps, laid waste to all plans during the Awami League鈥檚 tenure. It is, therefore, imperative not only to check against such manipulation but also to put in measures to stop any tweaking with public data in future and investigate people, in areas where appropriate, for such crimes and hold them to account.
