Country’s stats chief bemoans poor use of facts in policy making
Written by Chris BarronOutgoing statistician-general Pali Lehohla says the government has made poor use of the data Stats SA has provided to shape policy and improve service delivery.
“They don’t know how to handle the data, to interrogate it and to understand it”, he says.
“As government you need to know and understand these number in order to deal with the purpose of politics, which is delivering services, and delivering them in the best way possible.”
Its failure to use the data more effectively has resulted in policies not being factually based as they are in more economically successful countries such as China.
He says Stats SA must shoulder part of the blame for not doing enough to educate the users of its data.
“Statisticians are not the best communicators. They just through the data over the fence and say the politicians must catch it.”
He agrees it is the job of a professional civil service to guide the politicians, but has a low opinion of its performance.
“Those people are not doing a good job at all,” he says.
They themselves don’t know how to interpreted or use data on things/subjects like poverty, unemployment and economic growth, and for this he accepts some responsibility.
“It’s my duty to ensure that I train people to understand the data. You can’t use the data without understanding statistics”.
The bottom line is that decision-makers who should be using data to shape policies don’t know how to, he says.
“It is a big problem, and I’ve raised it a number of times. We need an environment in which the technocrats are schooled in this.”
“The people who are framing policies must understand these numbers. What they mean.”
The whole point of the data Stats SA provides is to inform investment and policy decisions. Lehohla refers to the Asian tigers.
“They use data. In China you can see what they do with numbers.”
“You can see when they make decisions, they are not empty decisions, they are based on the numbers, on facts.”
They use every fact available to them in their policymaking, he says.
“We don’t”
Thanks to Stats SA the government has data that is “exceedingly useful” to drive development and economic growth, he says. It is “very, very frustrating” that so little use is made of it.
He makes the point that although ideology is important in China, “their policies are driven by facts”.
Lehohla, 60, has been at Stats SA for 34 years, for the past 17 years as the boss. His bright yellow suit has become a familiar part of the South African landscape.
His departure comes with fears of state capture at their height.
Former finance minister Pravin Gordhan and his former deputy, Mcebisi Jonas, have warned that Stats SA is vulnerable.
Lehohla won’t say if he thinks Stats SA is a target of the state capture. But he says politicians are always eager to encroach on the independence o national statistical institution because the data they collect has obvious implications.
He believes Stats SA should have the same protection from government interference as judiciary, auditor-general and public protector.
“We don’t have the same independence as they do. That independence is very crucial because the numbers we produce are in the political space. And so you need that independence.”
Stats SA’s counterpart in Greece had the same kind of independence Stats SA has but when the numbers it produced became too awkward for government it was interfered with. This has not happened in South Africa, he says.
“But it doesn’t mean it will not happen. We know it has happened in jurisdictions where this kind of independence existed.”
Stats SA has professional independence but not administrative independence.
This means it has independence in terms of the data it produces, the timing and the methodologies. But it has no independence in terms of senior appointments and budgets.
“You need professional independence as well as administrative independence. I have professional independence, but I don’t have administrative independence.
“If you don’t have administrative independence it makes the compromising of professional independence possible,” he says.
“There is always this very obvious, and natural, tension between the numbers we give the politicians and the numbers they feel they should be getting.”
By controlling budgets and senior appointments, the government can interfere with methodologies to ensure it gets the kind of numbers it wants.
Stats SA recently had 13% budget cut and staff cuts that have created 230 vacancies, many in what Lehohla says are “key” positions.
He wont’t say if these cuts could make Stats SA more compliant to political preasure, but says they will weaken the institu-
“Cuts will deteriorate the functioning of Stats SA completely; Pali Lehohla (Outgoing statistician-general)
tion considerably.
“They will deteriorate the functioning of Stats SA completely.”
He says Stats SA, which gets more than R2-billion a year from the tax payer, didn’t have enough money to do its job properly even before the cuts.
The situation now is “untenable”, he says.
Although Lehohla has his critics he feels he has done an “excellent job”.
His low point was the 2003 blunder when Stats SA misreported inflation for 14 months.
He blames budget constraints.
“There was also very deep ignorance in staff, and also arrogance in not listening to advice.”
Including himself?
“Including myself, yes. I had systems that were so opaque and ignorant.
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