Governor State Bank of Pakistan Dr Shamshad Akhtar Thursday said that the government was considering a proposal to establish an independent Statistical Authority. She said this while briefing the Senate Standing Committee on Finance here at the Parliament House.
The members of the committee disagreed with government's figures on inflation and questioned the credibility of the data. "Unfortunately, the credibility of the data and statistics is not very high," commented Dr Khursheed Ahmed expressing his concern.
SBP Governor responded that a proposal was under consideration to establish an independent statistical authority, hoping the issue would be resolved once and for all. She briefed the committee about the problems being faced by the statisticians saying the provincial governments and private industries do not cooperate with them.
However, she was of the view that such problems would be resolved after the legislation. The members including Ishaq Dar of PML-N supported the proposal saying there should be an autonomous body of statistics division. A PML Senator Pari Gul Agha also came hard on SBP Governor and said that there was no control on inflation and life was getting worse for the poor.