Government has challenged the Central Statistical Office (CSO) to provide accurate and timely statistics on the socio-economic activities taking place in the country.
Acting Northern Province Permanent Secretary Gabriel Kaunda made the challenge when he officiated at the celebrations to mark this year’s African Statistics Day held in Kasama today.
In a speech read for him by acting Provincial Deputy Permanent Secretary Micah Zyambo, Mr. Kaunda said statistical data was critical in shaping the country’s economy hence the need to have accurate and timely data available all the time.
The acting PS also noted that qualitative and quantitative data can be used by policy makers to make informed decisions when addressing matters of national development.
Mr. Kaunda said Government was in a hurry to ensure that the current economic growth in the country helps to create jobs for Zambians and in turn improve their standard of living.
He also observed that Government attaches great importance to issues of statistical data as seen from the funding of various CSO surveys and censuses in the country.
Mr. Kaunda further thanked the donor community for their continued support to the Central Statistical Office (CSO) in the areas of data collection and dissemination to the general public.
And speaking at the same function, CSO Regional Statistician Henry Banda appealed to households to cooperate with enumerators, who are conducting an economic census in the Province, by giving accurate information on their economic status.
Mr. Banda also observed that the Economic Census poses a big challenge to the CSO since it was conducting the exercise for the first time in Zambia and Africa as a whole.
He however, said the data to be collected from the census would be used as a primary source of information for the economic growth taking place in the country.
