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Finance minister asks for investigation over NSO error
Edward Scicluna asks for investigation over National Statistics Office error in GDP calculation.
22 October 2013, 12:00am
Jurgen Balzan
Jurgen Balzan
2 min read
Adds PN statement
The Nationalist Party expressed concern over the "attacks" carried by Finance Minister Edward Scicluna against the National Statistics Office during a meeting of the MCESD.
"Minister Scicluna expects NSO to publish data which favours him rather than giving a clear picture on the economic and financial realities of our country," Nationalist MP Tonio Fenech said.
According to Fenech, Scicluna "didn't want" the NSO to reveal that unemployment was increasing every month while the cost of living went up as well.
The Opposition accused government of repeatedly hitting out at the NSO.
"Scicluna has already cast doubts on NSO's credibility when he criticised the way by which Gross Domestic Products statistics were gathered," Fenech said.
The former finance minister said that such attacks mar NSO's credibility and are "dangerous" as they diminish the country's reputation before the institutions.
The finance minister Edward Scicluna has today said that he will ask the chairman of the Malta Statistics Authority (MSA) - the independent regulator for official national statistics - to investigate what led to the National Statistics Office to miscalculate the country's GDP.
The requests follows Scicluna's outburst during yesterday's MCESD meeting in which he accused the NSO of issuing misleading information on economic data.
The ministry noted a statement issued by the National Statistics Office (NSO) which said that the post production validation and checking process identified a compilation error in the component "Taxes on Production and Imports" originally published on 6 September 2013.
The finance ministry added that according to the statement, this had a significant effect on the Gross Domestic Product figure for 2013 Quarter 2, which in September 2013 was mistakenly listed as 1.7%, but was in fact recalculated to 3.6%.
It added that minister asked the MSA chairman Albert Leone Ganado to investigate "what may have led to the error, together with any other related issues. The Minister will be requesting a detailed report including recommendation for the further strengthening of the institution." Leone Ganado was appointed at the helm of the authority in July by Scicluna.
"The ministry has also received assurances that the error occurred within the statistical agency and was not contained in any upstream tax data provided by the Finance Ministry," the statement said.
The ministry also pointed out that the draft Budget for 2014 is based on an economic forecast for 2014, which in turn is estimated over a long-term time-series, and is therefore not expected to be affected by one particular quarter.
"In line with the European Statistics Code of Practice, which requires that errors discovered in published statistics are corrected at the earliest possible date and publicised, NSO recalculated provisional GDP estimates for the second quarter as published last month."
The ministry was informed that Eurostat had been notified accordingly.
Jurgen Balzan was a MaltaToday reported from 2011 to 2017.
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The NSO was totally immersed in the cover ups of the PN Governments. If the PN feels that the NSO carried out its duty towards the People of Malta correctly, why should the PN be afraid of an investigation in the way the NSO has been operating and allegedly doctoring statistics. Clearly the PN is afraid that its "panpaluni" at the NSO will be uncovered and their disservice to the Country identified. I am totally in favour of an transparent inquiry to get at the truth. If anyone at the NSO has been found to be tampering data, then he/she should be taken to Court and not simply reported to the PSC.
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@always hoping. Maybe you should read again what the Minister had to say for rightly so NSO should be more responsible in its reporting. But of course you conveniently chose a blinkered, partisan approach.
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Thank you MaltaToday. You are the only English language newspaper which report the facts as they are. Unfortunately TOM is like In Nazzjon Taghna in English.
Joseph MELI •
It would appear that the error-strewn NSO is regularly subject to widely varying miscalculations.As according to the MT's weekly correspondent Micheal Falzon(Chairman, MDA ) their vacant dwellings census of 2011 was also massively inaccurate insomuch that the NSO stated that the figure of vacant housings amounted to over 72,000 units which only now (why is that?) being contested by the MDA with an "actual and accurate " figure of 15,000 being bandied about despite supportive claims that by Mr Falazon that the NSO's enumerators undertake this 2011 survey with "painstaking and professional detail " .Why this massive discrepancy?
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I have to say that this minister seem to be trying to fix this mess we are in. However the way I see he is part a government that has became a government of chiefs, the question is, have we any Indians left? That assumption of one high level minister quoted to have said: You do not need qualifications on the matter for a job is proving him wrong.
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A rise in the GDP of 3.6% is the highest for many long years and this should have been a major headline!
Given that SimonPn, with a little help from the TOM and Malta Independent plus the remnants of GonziPN at PBS, are hell bent of being negative and will do everything to put spokes in the wheels of Joseph Muscat, there it goes: 'errors occur' and good news dampened!
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Thank you Maltatoday for publishing this part of the speech. For the Times of Malta this was not of any importance to highlight this part of the speech.Hopefully this will not be another tap on the wrist and this want happen again,as normal nowadays.
