PBS tampering with LSM figures to look impressive

Ministries and departments concerned passing the buck

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) has ‘silently’ jacked up growth figures of Large Scale Manufacturing (LSM) with effect from July 2013 by revising upward growth figures of cotton yarn that would have far reaching impact on overall GDP growth figures of two and half years tenure of the incumbent regime, The News has learnt.

With this change in figures of cotton yarn, the country’s GDP growth on average crossed 5 percent instead of earlier known GDP figure of slightly over 4 percent in last two financial year 2013-14 and 2014-15 as well as it will also impact the growth figure of the ongoing financial year 2015-16 because of lower base effect of the last financial year.

This drastic step has been taken by the PBS without getting approval from any competent forum including its Governing Council being chaired by Minister for Finance Ishaq Dar. When this whole episode was brought into the notice of top wizard of Finance Ministry by The News, he directed the relevant officials to hold an inquiry and come up with facts.

At the moment, the ministries and departments concerned are passing the buck as no one is ready to take responsibility of changing figures after two and a half years period. In statistics, the figures were revised or updated after one year but how the figures were jacked up after two and half years, makes the matter fishy. 

Official sources in PBS confirmed to The News during investigations that took about one month and a half that Textile Commissioner Office located at Karachi sent out revised figures of Cotton Yarn to Ministry of Industries in October 2015 by changing the figures of growth with effect from July 2013. “The Ministry of Industries, which is responsible for providing data on LSM, dispatched these figures to PBS and after exchange of several official communications the whole series of LSM growth figures since July 2013 was revised upward,” said the sources.

Apparently, a cursory look shows that on the average the LSM growth was increased in the range of 1.8 to 2.8 percent on monthly basis, every passing month since July 2013. Chief Statistician of PBS Asif Bajwa told The News that they were just a post office in case of growth figures of LSM as it was basic responsibility of Ministry of Industries to provide these figures to them. “It is better to ask Ministry of Industries about these changes,” he added.

This correspondent contacted Secretary of Industries Arif Azeem a few weeks ago and inquired about these changes, he said that there might be computing or typographical error that was now rectified. “Kindly appreciate that we get these figures from other sources and pass on to PBS,” he added.

This correspondent called Textile Commissioner Office in Karachi and the person concerned for compiling the figures told that there might be “communication gap” as they had revised the figures every year when they are finalised. 

At the time of National Accounts meeting in May 2015, the quantum index up to February 2015 was presented which reflected poor show of LSM during the last two years. The figures published in the official document Economic Survey 2014-15 also reflected poor state of affairs of large-scale manufacturing sector. Economic Survey has growth numbers 4 percent and 2.4 percent respectively for 2013-14 and 2014-15. 

These figures were lower than LSM growth of 4.2 percent in the last year (2012-13) of the PPP regime.  The PBS has now done window dressing of the LSM number and revised index numbers for all months since first month of this government in July 2013. 

Interestingly 1.8 to 2.8 is arbitrarily added to index of every month since July 2013. The growth for the year 2013-14 improved by 1.8 percent points to 5.8 percent and growth for 2014-15 also looks improved at 3.4 percent.  In the Musharraf era too manufacturing sector’s number was tampered with by including non-mill sector of textile in cotton yarn figures. 

Surprisingly both old and revised index numbers are available on the PBS website. For older indices from July 2013 to February 2015 one has to download February 2015 file and for revised numbers June 2015 file can be downloaded.

Independent economists are already criticising and blaming the government for “manipulating” the official figures in every sector so there is need to come up with facts to clear the situation on GDP growth which is the most important economic indicator for any country.