NBS assures universities on use of statistics

Dar es Salaam. The Statistics Act of 2015 is not interfering with different university studies and research work, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

This was revealed on Monday 29, 2018 by NBS director General, Dr Albina Chuwa, when opening a seminar to educate civil society organisations, university representatives and other stakeholders.

Dr Chuwa said university studies and research are overseen by their university leaders.

"University PhD or Masters dissertations are managed within the university because they have their governing regulations and ethics," she said, adding that NBS was working with them and if they want to make their studies official they must consult NBS.

"They conduct very important studies and if they want to make them public NBS assesses their quality such as methodology and validation of sample so that we can use them to present to the whole population,” she explained.

The director also said the new Act ensured national statistics system was intact for improving data deliverance, working together with regulatory bodies to avoid contradiction of statistical figures.

She said: “If there is no one authority responsible for reporting on data, there is a possibility of contradiction on most statistical data such the gross domestic product, inflation rate and sector performance”.

She added that the use of common figures and official statistics helped to retain trust among data users.

For his part, Mr Stephen Chacha who is the executive director of Africa Philanthropic Foundation said civil societies were working with NBS to ensure the concept of official statistics was well understood and other stakeholders could know their boundaries.

“We are working together with NBS and we have a meeting with them next month to give them recommendation on improving the new Act,” he said.