Much has been talked about good governance being a sine-qua-non for the country's very existence. But unfortunately no concrete steps have so far been taken to streamline the system from the "Traditional" to the "Modern." Technically speaking, there may be a lot of approaches to have good governance. One of them is the development of statistical services that have not even after a lapse of more than six decades, so far been modernised in Pakistan.
The present Federal Board of Statistics (FBS) has been developed in many ways, but still lacks a lot in assisting towards good governance.
Now, when as a matter of policy (not of necessity), a large team of Ministers, Deputy Minister, Ministers of State and Advisor is placed in office, among the other steps a statistics division/ministry should be created. Its rules of business may be framed taking into account what is being done in other developed countries like Canada (after a process of trial and error over several years).
Then the responsibility of the statistics division in Canada falls in three well-defined fields, statistics, controls and records which are being performed easily and hastily in this age of "computerisation."
Pakistan being a basically agriculture country should have an Agriculture Sub-Division in the overall statistics set-up. Under the normal circumstances, almost all the public statistical work should be performed by the Agricultural Sub-Division. Such an arrangement would however necessitate a complete duplication of most of the reports which are prepared by the private agricultural trading companies.
To meet the needs of the FBS for those records and publications, an arrangement by developed countries whereby all the relevant statements prepared by the statistics division be forwarded to the Agricultural sub-division.
These statistics be utilised in part or full in the latter's related bulleting. In return the FBS should collaborate in the supply of crop production estimates and other data to the statistics division, necessary for its stabilised and control functions.
Work in the three areas viz statistics, contracts and records would require the control of the senior officers of the Division with corresponding officials in the other organisations.
Regular executive meetings be held with the FBS and department officials and almost daily control be maintained with the large agricultural marketing and trading companies.
Collection work of the statistics of the FBS should include joint problems and techniques etc as well as prices studies.
Before concluding, it needs mentioning that some reference must be made available to the Advisory funds of the senior officer of the division/ministry particularly with that of the statistics, particularly vital statistics.