Statistical Co-Ordination in South Africa

Statistics South Africa

Legal Framework For Co-ordination

• The Statistics Act (No. 6 of 1999) defines the role of the Statistician-General both as the coordinator of national statistics nationwide and as the developer and enforcer of statistical standards

• South African Cabinet approved the National Statistics System (NSS) in Jan 2002

Partnerships

• Education• Reserve Bank• Home Affairs• Dept of Agriculture• Mining• Labour• Trade and Industry• South African Revenue Service

Difficulties of Implementing the NSS

• Internal capacity ( both in Stats SA and other government departments)

• Political authority

• Lack of clear policy framework

Co-ordination of Economic Statistics

Important Supply side co-ordination with

Reserve Bank ( National Accounts and Selected Surveys) South African Revenue Service ( Business Register)

Other players: Trade and Industry ( Systems of Registrations) Labour ( UIF)) Municipalities ( Financial Data for Government Accounts)

SARS

• 1999 – Amendment to tax law to a allow Stats SA to access all tax records

• Independent Business Register ( co-operation of 4 government departments)

• Data Quality uneven

• Most important admin data – SARS – VAT data

• Key challenge – single business identifier

Stats SA and SARB

High Level of co-ordination and co-operation

Unusual division of labour

StatSA responsible for estimating GDP from the production side

SARB estimates from the expenditure side?

Has various implications for further division of labour

StatsSA – Production Side

• ) Estimates of GDP annually and quarterly. • 2) The Department of Agriculture (DEA) compiles all the

basic and detailed data regarding the production account for the agriculture industry while the final estimate is made by Stats SA in close co-operation with DEA.

• 3) StatSA relies on Reserve Banks Estimates in finance, construction and government for its quarterly GDP estimates.

• 4) StatSA relies on the SARB estimates of finance and government for its annual GDP estimates

• 5) Mining ( to cut down on response burden)- data directly from department of minerals and energy

SARB – Expenditure Side

• Estimates of GDP annually and quarterly. • Income and outlay accounts for institutional sectors,

annually for corporations, annually and quarterly for general government and households.

• Balance of payments, annually and quarterly • Financial accounts (flow of funds), annually and quarterly• SARB monitors the estimates of GDP from the produc

tion side by making their own estimates although not as detailed as Stats SA.

• compiles all the basic and detailed data and the production account for the finance and insurance industries and for the general government sector.

Government Accounts• With the exception of municipal data, the SARB obtains and

estimate all other levels of government on a quarterly basis. This information is required for their GDP estimates (as calculated by the SARB).

•  • The SARB quarterly bulletin also has tables on the finances of all

levels of government (income and expenditure); cash-flow statements, ownership of government debt, ets – Stats SA does not collect this type of information.

•  • For the purposes of compiling the National financial account, the

SARB also obtains information from various sectors (foreign, monetary, Public Investment Commission, etc).

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Pros and Cons

• Labour Market – scarce skills, higher salary scales makes SARB more attractive place

• a large critical mass of well paid statisticians and economists work on national accounts and in the process provides more integrity to GDP estimates.

• Stats SA thinly spread and highly dependent on one or two individuals

Pros/Cons

• The main advantage of this model is that it provides more confidence in the calculation of GDP to the public where estimates are calculated independently of each other signaling that there is some consistency ( assuming that the residual is small).

• Requires high level of co-ordination and co-operation – this is effective up to certain point

• Can you realistically separate the two processes?

• Different demands for transparency.