On page 4 (http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2013-08-08/news/nso-provide-necessary-gauges-for-government-to-guide-the-ship-of-state-2279931915/) we reproduce in this issue the Department of Information press release regarding the visit by Finance Minister Edward Scicluna to the National Statistics Office last week.

The DOI statement is exact and to the point. But a colleague from The Malta Independent who was covering the visit had a different report to make, and he was the only one from the media pack to do so.

He wrote: “Finance minister Edward Scicluna today raise doubts about the methodology used for past calculations of Malta’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

“Addressing a meeting at the National Statistics Office (NSO), Professor Scicluna pointed out that small agencies like the NSO are at a disadvantage when it comes to having the necessary know-how and expertise.

“Prof. Scicluna said that there are weaknesses in the reliability of GDP data. Giving a practical example, he said that the different ways in which inventory stock-taking is done can lead to variations of up to 1% in GDP.”

There have been the usual outraged comments made regarding this sortie and some people seemed to perceive the minister was about to change the rules of the game. Others accused him of trying to decrease the track record of the past government in the economic field.

This minister in particular and NSO have had running battles over many of the recent years. In particular, one remembers a keen tussle with regards to an NSO update of GDP statistics in 2007.

There could have been an element of political grandstanding in this, but there could also be divergence on far more important issues.

Many find it strange that Malta, being such a small country, has these problems regarding facts and statistics when far bigger countries do not.

One key element in all this is the fact that NSO is seriously under-staffed.

The week following the election result, the Governor of the Central Bank, Professor Josef Bonnici, presenting the Central Bank’s annual report, made very much the same point, arguing that NSO is seriously under-staffed. This was reported at the time but may have escaped notice given the events of those days.

It is important for the country as a whole, and for the economic governance, that Malta’s NSO lives up to its obligations to Eurostat. Much progress has been made but there are still cases where Eurostat statistics do not include figures from Malta because these are unavailable.

Joining Eurostat has been one big improvement to bolster NSO’s credibility and the Eurostat regime is quite rigid and demanding.

Now that the former critic is the boss, in other words, now that Edward Scicluna is the Minister of Finance, he should put his money where his mouth is and increase the staffing and expertise levels of NSO so that Malta can rest assured its facts are known and counted and brook no contradiction.