Labour Party deputy leader Charles Mangion, party spokesman for the economy and finance, wondered yesterday about the reliability of the National Statistics Office after the office revised upwards official figures on overtime income which were quoted by the Prime Minister only last month.

He told a news conference outside the NSO in Valletta yesterday that the NSO had the previous day, in a letter to the newspapers, revised upwards by at least Lm30 million, its own official figures about overtime income in Malta over the last years.

Just over a month ago, he said, the Prime Minister had said on budget day that declared overtime income amounted to Lm12 million, but the NSO, in its letter to the newspapers, was now saying that annual overtime income between 2004-06 amounted to between Lm42 million and Lm47 million.

He added he had that morning written to the NSO chairman, Reno Camilleri, asking for a full explanation of this so-called error on the part of the NSO.

Dr Mangion said that what this meant was that a little over one month ago the Prime Minister, in his budget speech, had quoted a figure which has now ended up being revised. This sharp revision of overtime income had come about only after the Labour opposition had, over the past days, explained the cost of its proposals should it be elected to government, and had quoted repeatedly the official figure of Lm12 million in overtime income, which the Prime Minister himself had quoted in the budget speech.

This was not the first time in the last months that the NSO had revised official statistics after the statistics were quoted by the opposition, even though the statistics would have been in the public domain for years. In May 2004, Dr Mangion said, the NSO had announced that in 1996, under the Nationalist government, Malta had a deficit of Lm188 million, which was the largest deficit ever, but when 30 months later this figure was quoted by the opposition, the NSO had come out saying that in May 2004 it had made a mistake of Lm80 million.

Dr Mangion pointed out in his letter to the NSO chairman that the sharp revision the NSO had made, created serious doubt about how reliable NSO figures were. The Prime Minister had quoted NSO figures in his budget speech and he was sure these would have been verified by experts in consultation with the NSO, to make sure there was full verification. How had none of the NSO experts drawn the attention of the Prime Minister’s experts about such a serious discrepancy in the statistics, he asked. Why did six weeks have to pass before the NSO made its correction?

If they were to have confidence restored in the NSO figures, Dr Mangion argued, the NSO had to give a more clear explanation. It did not help the credibility of a nationally important and “independent” institution such as the NSO to officially distribute statistics which hindered those who based their decisions and calculations on them, Dr Mangion wrote.

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In a letter sent to Dr Mangion yesterday evening, the National Statistics Office said that the overtime 2006 figures given to the local newspaper journalist in question were taken from the Labour Force Survey. This information had been corrected two days after it had been published in the newspaper on 18 November.

In the letter, chairman Reno Camilleri told Dr Mangion that he had personally sent for the journalist in question to inform him that the figures were based on a week’s reference and not a whole year. Mr Camilleri also said he made it very clear that the figures were taken from a survey that was not primarily intended for the compilation of these statistics.

Mr Camilleri said that the journalist seemed satisfied with the explanation he was given, and this was reflected in the article published in yesterday’s issue (Sunday’s) of the same newspaper.

Mr Camilleri also told Mr Mangion that the NSO’s role in the budget process is to provide figures for the majority of the tables which are published in the Economic Survey.

Mr Camilleri said that the figure of Lm12m quoted by Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi during the budget was not divulged by the NSO. Mr Camilleri said the NSO’s role never included analysing, checking, or correcting figures which are included in the budget speech.

Therefore, Mr Camilleri said that the NSO categorically denies it had been consulted in this field, either by the government or the opposition, as had been alleged in the press release issued by Dr Mangion.

Mr Camilleri said that since other newspapers had asked the NSO for an official estimate of the overtime which had been carried out in the past few years, according to the Labour Cost Survey, income from overtime over the past three years is estimated at between Lm42m and Lm47m each year.

This was taken from an exercise which was meant to serve as a basis for researchers conducting other economic surveys, Mr Camilleri said.

Mr Camilleri ended his letter by inviting Dr Mangion to forward any other queries, to the NSO, which he said, is always willing to provide clarifications as, and when necessary.