Denial, diversions and reality

The Nationalists would have been no less eager than Labour to exploit the controversially late correction by the National Office of Statistics of an error in a 2004 time-series quoted by the Opposition leader in the Budget 2007 debate, had they been in opposition. In that role up to 1987, they relentlessly alleged the official statistics were cooked.

When the Statistics Office was within my ministerial responsibilities (1983-87), I only once exchanged views with the government statistician, Reno Camilleri. He pointed out that the Population Census for 1975 had not taken place: we ought to hold the next one, due in 1985. Go ahead, I said. Being a correct civil servant he pointed out that it was Prime Minister Dom Mintoff who had blocked the 1975 census: might it not be wise to clear it with the PM? Go ahead, I reiterated.

I never gave the official any other instruction, directly or indirectly. Malta warming did not ease thereby. The Nationalist Opposition regularly badmouthed the official statistics, without any break to sip the water of fairness. Or of sense. For it makes sense to have political agreement to keep the official statistics away from political heat and easy suspicion. Otherwise, how can there be serious analysis of the economic situation, and planning?

Over the years the NSO has made great strides. With Mr Camilleri still involved in the regulatory framework, the office was led for a decade by Alfred Camilleri, an able economist whose objective professionalism I have never found the slightest reason to question. He became permanent secretary at the Ministry of Finance a year ago.  

The NSO is now led by Gordon Cordina, an academic economist in his mid-30s who packs much practical experience and great ability. The Office of Statistics/NSO progressed under Reno Camilleri and Alfred Camilleri. I have no doubt that it will improve further through Dr Cordina's application. The data coming out since his appointment already suggest that quality audits are going on, and that the NSO has shifted up a gear.

It is not so much a matter of having to report to Eurostat, the EU's statistical power machine, that lends conviction to the NSO data, as the Prime Minister so often suggests.

The rising quality is there to see and evaluate. The official statistics are public. It is understandable that Labour should demand satisfaction over the NSO's late correction of the 2004 time-series. The Opposition of the day has a duty to watchdog the public service, to ensure it is indeed a service to the public, not the toy poodle of the government.

Concurrently, if there are occasional human errors, public institutions should be required to review and upgrade their operations and methods.

It serves no public interest to undermine them with endless suspicion. In the specific case of the NSO 2004 time-series error the broader picture offers a useful perspective. It includes, for instance, the study titled Exports, Inflation And Value Added, prepared by a professor of economics, Joe Falzon, for the Chamber of Small and Medium Size Enterprises - GRTU, as a background to the 2007 Budget. The Opposition leader quoted extensively from the study to shore up his reply to the Budget Speech. As well he should have.

The statistical basis of the study was constructed from the data published by the National Office of Statistics, which Prof. Falzon objectively and expertly compiled. His conclusions are as valid as Dr Sant and others made them out to be only to the extent that the NSO statistics are themselves valid, notwithstanding the rare slip.

A bad error does not equate the NSO's statistics to lies, damned lies. It will be wasteful if the national statistics become a political football yet again, particularly since there is a far more basic and telling point to the issue. The NSO has established that the fiscal outturn for 1996 was Lm102.39 million - and that was at prices ruling 10 years ago. That is the key point for both the MLP and the Nationalist Party, which the latter still refuses to let stand in the honesty of its factual background. I have set that out often enough as the person who had to carry the fiscal baby fathered by the Nationalist government of 1992-96.

Before I was even sworn in as Minister of Finance in October 1996, the senior public servants in the ministry made me aware of the fact, well known to them, that the public finances were in dire straits, and not at all flush as Nationalist ministers were declaring right up to polling day. A public official, by no means a Labourite, simply a person dedicated to his public duties, later brought me a copy of a memorandum concerning the forecast heavy financial imbalance prepared for the Cabinet before there was the merest hint that Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami would call the forthcoming general election early.

Setting down some memories of my time in politics recently, I had to force myself to be suitably detached from the anger I always feel that the Nationalists persist in denying their responsibility for the structural deficit they left behind them for the 1996-98 Labour government to grapple with.

That particular slice of ugly political dishonesty appeared immediately after Labour had won the 1996 election. It persisted when I presented the Estimates for 1997, set out the financial situation as I had factually found it, and included some new taxes in the budget - pathetically not enough, even as a start, and most of which the Finance Ministry had been preparing for my Nationalist predecessor, anyway.

Lawrence Gonzi, the present Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, has opted to make that particular political dishonesty by his own, though he was not part of his predecessor's fathering of the deficit. At the time he was an MP as a deservedly bilaterally respected Speaker of the House, and had not contested the 1992 election.

The Labour Party can continue to shame the shameless Nationalists on that basis. Making too much of a meal out of a statistical error, however and whenever it came about and was corrected, merely diverts attention from that dark blot on the PN record and political integrity. It also diverts attention from the actual state of the public finances today, as summarised in the large imbalance in domestic financial resources, which I have compiled from the official data and used in the Talking Point of October 30.

I do not believe we are getting lies, damned lies and statistics from the NSO. What we are going through is a fresh bout of dishonest denial by the Nationalists, and a surprising diversion of attention from the facts that matter by Labour. Even in the endless Malta warming, the two sides need not offer melt down. They should be serving a public thirsty for the relevant truth going forward much more seriously.

They ought to be dealing with the challenging realities prevailing today and discernible going forward, rather than arguing interminably about facts of the past.

Concluded