What is happening in the Czech Statistical Office?

12. 3. 2010 / Štěpán Kotrba

The Czech Statistical Office (ČSÚ) is having an unlucky week. On Monday the data regarding industrial output and construction progress was made public. The report was peculiarly poor, though. That was because it didn't contain the data about the development of each industrial sector. The next day an announcement could be found on the Czech Statistical Office's webpage, explaining that this was because of technical reasons, which they were investigating.

A closer look at the statistics about the industrial production shows very tellingly, that all the information about our industrial development from last year had disappeared from the ČSÚ site. Also on civil construction. Is it just an accident?

Wednesday morning at 9 our Gross Domestic Product (HDP in Czech) data was supposed to be made public. Instead, we get the news that "today the ČSÚ received new information about the Value Added Tax (DPH in Czech) from the fourth quarter of 2009, which will be computed with the data about our economic development until 14:00." Is this just a coincidence or something else is going on?

Let's think about it: the data about the DPH for 2009 comes from a statement, which is supposed to be filed until the 25th of January at the Financial Office. At least 6 weeks elapsed -- more than enough to have calculated and controlled the whole thing many times around. In spite of that, exactly on Wednesday morning -- just a few minutes before having to make it public -- comes up some totally new data, which changes it all?

How can we believe something like that? Let's agree that an official report about the country's Gross Domestic Product cannot be produced just like that, in the morning of the day when it has to be published. To prepare the report is necessary to take into account lots of other data, so it is prepared in advance.

Nobody in the institution really didn't realize before, that there was a mistake? What kind of people are working on such an important report? Or would it be that the Statistical Office is not getting the flow of information it needs from the Ministry of Finance?

The fact that the official statistics are not on time will not endanger our country. If the GDP is some tenth of a percent higher or lower, nobody would notice and life goes on, thank goodness. Nonetheless, this shows something else, which from the perspective of an average citizen is sad: to which level of decay has reached our public administration... Or it sends us an even worse message -- that very serious data is held up, because of what could happen in the Parliament.

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Obsah vydání | Úterý 16.3. 2010