The EU experts rejected another bill Another bill disposed as garbage

Aleksandra Laliashvili

Together with numerous other reforms carried out in Georgia, after Rose Revolution, reform of statistics sector has been conducted also.

Institutionally independent Department of Statistics has been subjected to the Ministry of Economic Development of Georgia. It’s not a novelty that statistical data in Georgia either does not exist or confidence in it is quite low. What are the reasons? And what might be done in order to improve the situation?
Abill that considers division of the Department of Statistics from the Ministry of Economic Development and assignation of a new status to it has been introduced in the parliament, in summer. Parliament should have approved the mentioned bill in autumn. However, the EU experts rejected it and advised the government to elaborate the new project.
The bill has been criticized not only by EU experts, but also by Georgian society. Existing bill was not considering the necessity of presenting statistical data. The specialists declare that without taking this clause into account, society’s confidence in statistics remains at the same low degree, as the development of accounting environment in Georgia depends on this. The law on statistics in many EU countries considers not only presentation of initial statistical information, but also sanctions in case of not presenting it.
Imperfection of the existing legislation mainly is that it doesn’t establish strict institutional frame for the definition of statisticians. This implies absence of professional independence for statisticians. Economic expert, Mr. David Narmania spoke about the existing problems of the field:
“Statistics Department has to face two main problems. On the first point, the absence of actual independence of the department. The Department of Statistics is subjected to the Ministry of Economic Development. To my mind, this is not judicious. It is unacceptable that one institution is preparing statistical data and at the same time, the same institution is responsible for performance of statistical showings. Statistics Department requires actual independence. It should be obliged to render account only to the parliament of Georgia. Statistics Department should have nothing in common with the government, except of sending specific statistical data in case of necessity. The head of statistics department should periodically report to the parliament on statistical situation in the country, and inform it concerning deterioration or improvement of some showings. Only based on this report, should the parliament carry out its new policy.
Nowadays, when the government is responsible for performance of statistical data and it, at the same time, reports to the parliament, some data might be colored, as the undesirable data might result use of specific mechanisms by the parliament against the government.
The second important problem is scarcity of the resources available to the statistics department. Funds assigned to the statistics department are not enough for providing complete statistical data collecting. At present, the statistics department mainly receives information from various institutions. The received information is elaborated and published afterwards. Statistics department is collecting statistical information independently only in minor amounts. Due to scarcity of financial resources, statistics department cannot conduct surveys among the population and other types of researches.
Of course, there are other problems in the field. However, fortunately, these are minor imperfections that can be easily corrected. Methods of calculation for some statistical showings need to be revised, including the methodology of calculating living-wage that has been designed in 2007. Personnel of the statistics department should be renovated. Their professional development is obligatory; it is necessary to conduct trainings in the new methodologies.
Composition of the board of statistics department should be revised either. Board must be miscellaneous and it should compose of the representatives from the parliament and the ministries of economic development and finances. Independent experts and representatives of mass media should be included in the composition of the board. In other words, the composition of the board should be miscellaneous in order to ensure impartiality of the carried out policy toward specific political interests.
G.E. – Why EU experts rejected the bill introduced to the parliament?
D.N. – Firstly, it should be noted that adoption of the new law on statistics department and providing its independence has been quite delayed. The process of unifying statistics department with the Ministry of Economic Development has been accomplished quite rapidly. However, the process of separation has been much procrastinated. In this case, some doubts that state does not want to achieve actual independence of the department appear. As it seems, it is delaying this process deliberately. Otherwise, it would be simple to take example from statistical methodology and approaches practiced by the EU, enshrined in its neighborhood policy and harmonize our statistics legislation with them. In this case, the discussions around the bill would have been relatively painless. However, up today, the remarks of the EU experts are quite grounded and if we are going to keep our striving for Europe, it is essential to take them into consideration.
G.E. – What are the main requirements of the EU toward reform of the field in Georgia?
D.N. – The European Union has its methodology that should be taken into consideration. At present, the main requirement of the EU is to establish independent statistics department. The EU has various models of statistical accounting that might be adopted. Another requirement is collaboration between statistics services of the EU and its partner countries.
Statistics Department is facing numerous problems. The solution requires presence of political will together with institutional and legislative amendments. Otherwise, we will have to change our policy headed for Europe, as the EU is content neither with our existing legislation nor legislative initiative designed by the government. Independent statistics department is one of the requirements, together with adoption of the laws on food safety and competition that must be fulfilled in order to reach agreement on free trade with the EU.