Transcript The Need for Strategic Planning in the Development of National

The Need for Strategic Planning
in the Development of National
Accounts and Related Basic
Statistics in Sierra Leone.
By
Mwaluma Andrew Bryma Gegbe
Senior Statistician,
National Accounts Statistics
Statistics Sierra Leone
Content
1: Background
2: Problems of National Accounts Compilation
• Lack of Coordination of Statistical Production
and poor data sources
• Unreliable Data on Agricultural Production
• The Informal Nature of the Economy
• Outdated Business Registers
• Financial and Human Resources Available to
NSO are Inadequate
3: The Need for Strategic Planning
4: Conclusion
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1. Background
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Within the framework of the integration process, the Authority of Heads of
States and Governments of the Economic Community of West African
States at their session held in Lome in December 1999, decided to put in
place the multilateral surveillance mechanism which set out the
convergence criteria for monetary and economic union.
Because some of the criteria are directly related to Gross Domestic Product
(GDP); ECOWAS contracted AFRISTAT to carry out an assessment of the
status of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The mission reported that:
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Most member countries do not have an updated business register for statistical
sampling,
data collection programs were inadequate and infrequent,
response rates were low,
the informal sector was inadequately covered
computer hardware and software and other information technology facilities were
insufficient or completely lacking.
And the statistical system was largely uncoordinated.
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2. Problems of National Accounts Compilation - Introduction
• The challenges facing national accountants in Sierra
Leone are similar to those faced by their counterparts
elsewhere in the sub-region even-though they vary in
magnitude.
• In Sierra Leone, there was complete breakdown in the
statistical system during the war and this affected the
national accounts compilation adversely.
• The war caused the destruction of most infrastructures
and the drain of the technical experts like national
accountants.
• At the moment, the key problems compilers are now
facing are:
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Lack of Coordination of Statistical Production and poor data
sources
• The lack of coordination between institutions,
aimed at ensuring that they do not work at crosspurposes, lead to duplications of efforts and
waste of money and human resources.
• Most administrative sources of data are
fragmented, varied in format and content and
therefore unreliable. The impact is that the data
is not readily available in standard format on
request, which affects the quality of the national
accounts.
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Unreliable Data on Agricultural Production
• Agriculture is estimated to contribute about 48 per cent
to GDP and employs about 67 per cent of the labour
force
• Thus the exhaustiveness of the national accounts to a
large extent depends on the accuracy of agriculture data.
– For instance, the crop data varies depending the user; livestock
data is only given in total head counts and not classified.
• A regular system for the estimation of agricultural
production by means of censuses and surveys is absent,
which undermines the quality of the national account
estimates like Gross Fixed Capital Formation in
Livestock and Forestry.
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The Informal Nature of the Economy
• The Sierra Leone economy is characterized by large
informal sector activities. Measuring the informal sector
is therefore important to improve on the exhaustiveness
of the national accounts
• This informal nature of the economy accounts greatly to
the poor responses to surveys conducted because of
lack of proper documentation of business activities.
• The informal activities carried-out by households are
estimated using the Sierra Leone Integrated Household
Survey (SLIHS) conducted in 2003/4
• Additionally, a significant proportion of the economy
consists of underground activities and illegal activities
which are very difficult to measure and are therefore
absent in the National Accounts of Sierra Leone.
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Outdated Business Registers
• A Business Register that contains all units in the
population should have all the data that is
useful for stratification and sample selection.
• In Sierra Leone, the starting point for the
construction of the Business Register was the
Census of Business Establishments conducted
in 2005. The response was poor and some of
the necessary fields of the questionnaire that
would have been useful for national accounts
purposes were left blank.
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Financial and Human Resources Available to SSL
are Inadequate.
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Generally, Policy makers in governments are not aware of the importance of
statistics in decision making.
The Sierra Leone government while recognising the importance of statistics
is preoccupied with issues relating directly to the reduction of poverty in the
face of tight budget constraints; hence non-poverty related activities are
given less priority.
Unlike the social statistics data collection, which is readily funded by donors,
National Accounts activities are funded by government
The National Accountant is therefore faced with an up-hill task of estimating
aggregates from a survey with limited coverage.
Low staff salaries and lack of motivation lead to a gradual depletion of
trained and qualified statisticians in National Accounts especially when there
is no extra earning.
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Lack of information technology facilities
• In Sierra Leone, there is unavailability of
appropriate software like ERETES and the
inability of SSL staff to use such
specialized software affects the accuracy
of the estimates. We still use basic
Microsoft Excel to compute GDP
aggregates which increases the possibility
of errors.
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3. The Need for Strategic Planning
• The Government in conjunction with the World
Bank and ICP Africa supported the National
Strategy for the Development of Statistics
(NSDS) approach as the main instrument for the
development of Statistics.
• The main objective of the strategic plan is to
develop an integrated, harmonised, coordinated
and coherent statistical system which covers all
data producing agencies in the country with
Statistics Sierra Leone as the coordinating
agency.
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3. The Need for Strategic Planning
continued
• To ensure stakeholder ownership and
encourage political commitment, the strategic
planning document was put in place by the
NSDS team in consultation with SSL staff, other
producers of statistics in the country,
government departments, civil societies and
parliament.
• Within the NSDS framework we have developed
an institutional coordinating arrangement and
joint work plan for the collection and
dissemination of data all over the country.
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4: Conclusion
• The NSDS document was adopted early this year.
• Additional statisticians have now been recruited for key
ministries, departments and agencies to coordinate the
statistical activities in these institutions.
• There is now a general consensus by data producers
and users in Sierra Leone on the need to adopt the
National Strategies for the Development of Statistics as
the way forward for solving the problems of statistical
production and dissemination including the production of
reliable GDP.
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• Thank you for your attention
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