DHAKA, June 10, 2021 (BSS) – Planning Minister MA Mannan today said that there is no reason to hide data and information as the present Awami League government works for ensuring welfare and betterment of people.
“There is no problem in revealing the government information in 99 percent occasions, but there may be a bar for disclosing 1 percent information due to matters relating to state security. There may not be any need in the future to keep secret of the rest of information,” he said.
The Planning Minister was addressing the publication ceremony of a book titled “BBS Glossary: Concepts and Definition” as the chief guest held at the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) building in the capital. The publication of the book took place under the National Strategy for the Development of Statistics (NSDS) Implementation Support Project.
Chaired by Informatics and Statistics Division Secretary Muhammad Yamin Chowdhury, BBS Director General Md Tajul Islam spoke on the occasion.
Project Director of NSDS Dilder Hossain presented the key-note paper.
The Planning Minister asked the officials concerned of BBS not to hide any information and data if that is not threatening to state security.
Referring to the officials of BBS, he said if such serious or alarming findings come from any survey of BBS, then inform those to the BBS Director General or the Statistics Division Secretary. “If they think, they can inform me about the matter and then I can also inform that to the head of the government,” he added.
Mannan said the government is fully dependent on BBS for data and information, especially the main essence for framing planning comes from BBS. “For this, there is a need for further purity of BBS as we work for ensuring welfare and betterment of country’s people.”
He also said there is a need to further enhance the skills of the bureaucrats through imparting them more training.
Statistics and Informatics Division Secretary Muhammad Yamin Chowdhury said there is often debate over the publication of survey results and findings and many tend to give separate explanation.
“This publication will put an end to these debates,”he added.
The NSDS Implementation Support Project aims to ensure reports on MoUs, Report on Administrative Data, Report on Functional Review of BBS, Report on HR Recruitment;
Training on Quality Management, Training Policy, Training Plan, Training Inventory, Training Materials, Basic Training, Subject-matter and Advanced Training.
Besides, it also targets to frame ICT Plan, Website Development;Baseline Review of Core Statistics, Improvements in Core Statistics, Manuals on Improved Methodologies; advance Release Calendar, Protocol for Advance Release Calendar, Data Visualization, Metadata Documentation, Codes and Syntaxes, Survey Documentation, Data Policy, Data anonymization.