Statistics bureau contests PPP’s claims in SHC

The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics has contested the Pakistan People’s Party’s claims about flaws in the ongoing census process, submitting in the Sindh High Court that the concerns expressed did not take into account the objectives and ground realities, especially regarding security and presence of a sizeable number of aliens in the country.

The PPP had filed a petition in the SHC seeking public participation in the census and enumeration process and appointment of impartial enumerators for the purpose.

Filing comments on the petition, the PBS submitted that the entire census exercise was based on answers provided to the enumerator by an adult member of a household and that the enumerators do not have the mandate to check the veracity of the answers given to them.

As for Form-1, Form 2 and REN-2 for the entire country, the statistics bureau stated that doubts mentioned by the petitioner have no valid ground whatsoever, as the finance minister had especially offered the Sindh chief minister to constitute a committee of technical experts to address apprehensions regarding the transparency of the process.

The PBS’s official maintained that the data processing could have been monitored by officials concerned at the bureau’s headquarters to ensure that all parameters, for processing the data, were being uniformly applied for the entire country.

It was submitted that all people in Pakistan including aliens, legal or otherwise, will be counted in the census, the former being recorded as Non-Pakistanis.

The bureau submitted that the petitioner rejected the census on flimsy grounds stating that Form-2A was not being canvassed.

The official maintained that the claim was made without realising that core questions for the census were being fielded, while Form-2A was only a supplementary exercise being undertaken for certain specified purposes as per past practice and in line with the Council of Common Interest’s decision. The phase will be followed even after the completion of the ongoing census, the officer maintained. The court after taking the statement the PBS’s statement on record adjourned the hearing till May 18.

PPP leader Farhatullah Babar and Maula Bux Chandio submitted in the petition that several important aspects were being hidden from the general public and the process of the census should be transparent.

They submitted that people were complaining against the process of census as there was no procedure for verifying the data of the family. The petition also called for the assistant commissioner, notified as census district officers, to maintain the record in their respective public office and make it accessible for the public at large as ensured in Article 19-A of the Constitution.

The PPP lawmakers submitted that the exercise undertaken by the census staff lacked transparency and that the census process should be conducted on internationally acclaimed norms.

They also sought establishment of an emergency complaint centre for the public where grievances regarding wrong, false and fabricated enumeration may be timely addressed in an effective manner. They also sought injunctions submitting that several sections of the General Statistics (Reorganisation) Act, 2011 were contrary to Article 19-A.