Moldovan PM visits national statistics bureau

Chisinau, 20 October /MOLDPRES/ – Prime Minister Pavel Filip visited the National Bureau of Statistics (BNS) today, when statisticians in Moldova celebrate their professional day. The Premier congratulated on this occasion all domain specialists, noting their role in development of Moldova, the government’s communication and media relations department has reported.

The prime minister started his visit from the place where the collected data are processed by enumerators who worked during the last population and housing census in 2014 and where he got interested how the things evolved on it.

According to BNS’s General Director Vitalie Valcov, so far, nearly 96 per cent of questionnaires have been processed, and by the end of October 2016, which is two months earlier than the deadline, set by the National Committee for population and housing census 2014, entering data into the specialized information system to be completed. Afterwards, the data have to be checked and prepared for publication, so until March 2017 to publish the census’ final results.

Pavel Filip said that actually processes related to the census in 2014 were delayed and financial resources allocated for this purpose used irrationally. The prime minister said it would have been more effective if modern information technologies were applied right from the census early stages. The head of the government noted with regret that some managers who led the process from the beginning did not understand that digitization did not mean manually entering data in the completed questionnaires on paper, but using appropriate devices to save time and resources. In this context, Pavel Filip assured that the government would pay more attention to the field, so that to modernize it and for the upcoming census, expected to be held in 2020, not to repeat previous mistakes.

Also today, the prime minister participated in a festive meeting held at NBS, where he met with employees of the institution and discussed the results and goals to be achieved by them.

"A society can not call itself modern unless puts data in order and the government will provide support to BNS to provide statistical data quality", the prime minister said.

Pavel Filip talked about the need to strengthen national statistical system, but also the entire public administration in Moldova. The prime minister said that public administration reform, which was initiated by the government, aimed to modernize and streamline the public sector and create an attractive activity for highly qualified specialists to be motivated and bring benefits to society, accordingly.

The National Statistics Bureau's assignment is to develop policies and provide statistical data and statistical information quality and in time on the social and economic situation of Moldova.

(Editor A. Raileanu)