The Finance Ministry yesterday ordered a probe into an error in the National Statistics Office’s compilation of GDP figures for the second quarter of this year.
The Government’s call for a full investigation by the Malta Statistics Authority, “together with other related issues”, arrived just a day after harsh public criticism was levelled at the NSO by Finance Minister Edward Scicluna.
He accused the independent body of issuing misleading information about inflation and unemployment.
Last Monday, on its own initiative, the NSO issued a clarification on the GDP figures published last September, saying an error during data compilation had been noted and corrected. As a result, the figure was revised to 3.6 per cent from the original 1.7 per cent.
According to the NSO, the error was identified during a post-production and validation process, carried out according to EU rules.
However, the Finance Ministry yesterday insisted on a full investigation together with “a detailed report including recommendation for the further strengthening of the institution”.
A spokesman for the NSO regretted the mistake but said it had taken immediate steps to correct it. He said “the NSO will cooperate fully with the investigation”.
While admitting that the error was quite a big one – with GDP more than twice the original figure – a leading statistician and former senior official at the statistics office said such revisions “are quite frequent in statistics”.
However, economist Lino Brigulio said that from his experience “there are too many revisions by the NSO, and the information in their press releases with regard to GDP has recently become less informative”.
Although he said there was a lot of improvement in statistics since Malta joined the EU, more needed to be done. “I see nothing wrong in the minister’s public comments on the NSO as he is not telling them what statistics should be published, and that these should favour the Government. He is not interfering in the independence of the NSO by indicating that there could possibly be mistakes in statistical reporting.”
The Nationalist Party yesterday called on Minister Scicluna to “stop his attacks on the NSO”.
It accused him of trying to influence the independence of the statistics office in order to issue figures favourable to the Government. This, the PN said, would have a serious impact on the country’s credibility.