Reforming the PBS

The government review of the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics is a welcome step towards restoring integrity in our official statistics. The finance minister reportedly wants to set things right, though it’s the planning minister, who oversees the PBS, who should lead the charge to reform the PBS. Even so, the initiative deserves support.

Attention to this issue was earlier drawn during the budget debate by the leader of the opposition. But let us not forget: it was his government that, in April 2019, placed the PBS under the Ministry of Planning, yoking it to political oversight. That move lies at the root of today’s crisis of integrity in Pakistan’s official statistics. Until then, the PBS operated under the Statistics Act of 2011, which granted it a degree of professional autonomy, anchored by a strong chief statistician and a Governing Council chaired by the minister of finance. It was a workable law that offered protection from day-to-day interference.

The 2019 shift blurred the line between the producers and users of statistics. What had been a technical, quasi-independent agency became vulnerable to political pressure, eroding public trust in everything from GDP figures to livestock counts. With the Ministry of Planning now both financier and principal user of PBS statistics, the scope for implicit or explicit influence grew significantly. The risk is that official statistics begin to serve policy narratives rather than reflect economic reality.

Reform, then, is clearly needed. But what kind?

Above all, it must restore the PBS’s ability to produce and publish reliable statistics. That won’t happen without first acknowledging a deeper problem: the unease governments feel towards independent professionals and the lingering fear that such individuals may, at times, speak inconvenient truths.

The first step, then, must be to reverse the 2019 administrative change and fully restore the Statistics Act of 2011. That Act was effectively set aside when the PBS was placed under a line ministry, in violation of both the letter and spirit of sound statistical governance.

I say this with full respect for the current Minister of Planning, who brings both a strong mandate and personal integrity to the role. But institutional safeguards remain essential. In a system under constant pressure to show results, especially when real progress is scarce, lower-level officials may feel compelled to present official statistics in a more favourable light.

That is why legal and institutional protections matter. A credible statistical system cannot rely solely on personal integrity. It must be structured to resist pressure from the top and insulate against quiet compromises made below when careers, contracts or reputations are on the line. Reliable statistics depend on strong systems, not just principled individuals.

It is in this context that the opposition leader’s call during the budget debate for ‘AI-driven analytics’ to reform the PBS seems premature. Advanced tools are no substitute for institutional integrity. Rather than leapfrogging over foundational weaknesses, we would do better to recommit to the UN’s Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics, which emphasise professional independence, methodological transparency and equal access.

These are not abstract aspirations. An IMF Working Paper that I co-authored, 'Statistical Legislation: Toward a More General Framework', identified key components of statistical law that help translate these principles into operational reality. Implementing such fundamentals would go a long way toward restoring trust in our official statistics, without the need for artificial intelligence.

So, if we are serious about aligning with these principles, then the legal framework must evolve accordingly. Restoring the Statistics Act is only the first step; it must also be strengthened. The chief statistician should be empowered to resist political pressure, secure adequate resources and coordinate the work of all official statistics-producing agencies. This office should report directly to the president and be formally tasked with integrating the outputs of the Ministry of Finance, the State Bank and other public entities, functions the State Bank has increasingly begun to assume informally in its role as custodian of the IMF’s Data Dissemination Standard. This role properly belongs to the PBS.

In addition, the chief statistician should be obligated to produce and disseminate statistics in line with global standards, such as the IMF’s Special Data Dissemination Standards (SDDS), because subscribing to the SDDS sends a clear signal, both to international markets and domestic stakeholders, that the country’s statistics are credible and professionally managed.

Countries facing economic challenges like ours, such as Sri Lanka and Mauritius, have already subscribed to the SDDS, recognising both its financial benefits and the importance of allocating sufficient resources to meet its standards. That is a commitment we must also make. SDDS subscribers may receive interest rate discounts of up to 55 basis points on sovereign bonds – a reminder that statistical integrity is not just a technical concern, but an economic imperative. And restoring that integrity will not begin with AI-powered analytics. It will begin with integrity, underpinned by law.

The writer is a freelance contributor. He can be reached at: Khwaja.Sarmad@gmail.com