Transcript Statistical Co-Ordination in South Africa

Statistical Co-Ordination in
South Africa
Statistics South Africa
Legal Framework For Co-ordination
• The Statistics Act (No. 6 of 1999) defines
the role of the Statistician-General both as
the coordinator of national statistics
nationwide and as the developer and
enforcer of statistical standards
• South African Cabinet approved the
National Statistics System (NSS) in Jan
2002
Partnerships
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Education
Reserve Bank
Home Affairs
Dept of Agriculture
Mining
Labour
Trade and Industry
South African Revenue Service
Difficulties of Implementing the
NSS
• Internal capacity ( both in Stats SA and
other government departments)
• Political authority
• Lack of clear policy framework
Co-ordination of Economic
Statistics
Important Supply side co-ordination with
Reserve Bank ( National Accounts and Selected Surveys)
South African Revenue Service ( Business Register)
Other players:
Trade and Industry ( Systems of Registrations)
Labour ( UIF))
Municipalities ( Financial Data for Government Accounts)
SARS
• 1999 – Amendment to tax law to a allow
Stats SA to access all tax records
• Independent Business Register ( cooperation of 4 government departments)
• Data Quality uneven
• Most important admin data – SARS – VAT
data
• Key challenge – single business identifier
Stats SA and SARB
High Level of co-ordination and co-operation
Unusual division of labour
StatSA responsible for estimating GDP from
the production side
SARB estimates from the expenditure side?
Has various implications for further division
of labour
StatsSA – Production Side
• ) Estimates of GDP annually and quarterly.
• 2) The Department of Agriculture (DEA) compiles all the
basic and detailed data regarding the production account
for the agriculture industry while the final estimate is
made by Stats SA in close co-operation with DEA.
• 3) StatSA relies on Reserve Banks Estimates in finance,
construction and government for its quarterly GDP
estimates.
• 4) StatSA relies on the SARB estimates of finance and
government for its annual GDP estimates
• 5) Mining ( to cut down on response burden)- data
directly from department of minerals and energy
SARB – Expenditure Side
• Estimates of GDP annually and quarterly.
• Income and outlay accounts for institutional sectors,
annually for corporations, annually and quarterly for
general government and households.
• Balance of payments, annually and quarterly
• Financial accounts (flow of funds), annually and quarterly
• SARB monitors the estimates of GDP from the production side by making their own estimates although not as
detailed as Stats SA.
• compiles all the basic and detailed data and the
production account for the finance and insurance
industries and for the general government sector.
Government Accounts
• With the exception of municipal data, the SARB obtains and
estimate all other levels of government on a quarterly basis. This
information is required for their GDP estimates (as calculated by the
SARB).
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• The SARB quarterly bulletin also has tables on the finances of all
levels of government (income and expenditure); cash-flow
statements, ownership of government debt, ets – Stats SA does not
collect this type of information.
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• For the purposes of compiling the National financial account, the
SARB also obtains information from various sectors (foreign,
monetary, Public Investment Commission, etc).
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Pros and Cons
• Labour Market – scarce skills, higher
salary scales makes SARB more attractive
place
• a large critical mass of well paid
statisticians and economists work on
national accounts and in the process
provides more integrity to GDP estimates.
• Stats SA thinly spread and highly
dependent on one or two individuals
Pros/Cons
• The main advantage of this model is that it
provides more confidence in the calculation of
GDP to the public where estimates are
calculated independently of each other signaling
that there is some consistency ( assuming that
the residual is small).
• Requires high level of co-ordination and cooperation – this is effective up to certain point
• Can you realistically separate the two
processes?
• Different demands for transparency.