August 5, 2015

PUBLIC FEEDBACK AFTER THE WORKSHOP “PROBLEMS IN DRAFT LAW ON STATISTICS AMENDMENT BILL” (08/2015)

  On August 4th, RED has organized a workshop "Problems in the draft Law on Statistics amendment bill", which had the participation of many reporters and journalists from different newspapers, TV and radio stations. After the workshop, news and stories related to this workshop has been published and broadcasted on many papers, websites, aired on televisions and radios. The debate concerning the problems related to the draft Law on Statistics amendment bill is still going on at the time. The online newspaper ‘Đảng Cộng sản Việt Nam’ quoted the opinions of expert Sy Cuong Vu, Bui Linh, Dinh Ngoc Bui to stress on the importance of the numbers’ accuracy and independency. "To increase independence of statistical agency" is also the title of a short article on online newspaper ‘Đại biểu nhân dân’. "In fact, to increase the accuracy of statistics, many countries has entrusted agencies from outside of national organizations to gather socioeconomic statistics, in order to create competitive enviroment in this work and simultaneously facilitate cross-checking data from different sources. Thus, experts said: “We should establish the national statistical agency which is independent from the government [...] With a healthy budget and a stable legal background, the statistical agency will be able to implement principles (only obey to the laws and statistical science), not under pressure of announcing fake positive data as usual.”

Phóng viên tác nghiệp tại hội thảo

Economics and Forecasting – a news website under the management of the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) – has published an article named: "To cease the obsession with archievements via artifical data". Right from the beginning, reporter Phuong Anh wrote: "The statistics are viewed as vital tool to measure the ‘health’ of the economy and society system. But if we lack of the adequate and effective legal framework, the disease of artifical data would repeatlly occur.” SBTN published news about the workshop, expressed the view that the statistics "should be a form of service in which results, forecast and analysis of the statistics are the goods to be provided". In addition, the news website of ‘Đại đoàn kết’, Radio & Television Station of Ba Ria-Vung Tau, Vietnam National Defense TV station, Hanoi TV station, VTC station... had also reported this event. On an CafeF.vn article written: "Fate of General Statistics Office of Vietnam still uncertain", quoted by Dr. Tran Du Lich - commissioner of the Economic Committee - said that the regulations in the bill are still not clear about the "fate" of the General Statistics Office. The article also brought out another issue in the bill – lack of coordination between central statistical offices and the ministries and branches which implement state’s management. The website The Guardian of Rights (which belongs to Ho Chi Minh City  Law Consultancy Center) – published a long article discussing how to overcome the "artifical" statistics, as well as questioning "what agency in which General Statistics Office should belong to?”. ‘Hai quan’ newspaper, issued on August 11th also spent most of its 8th page, on Economic section, for journalist Luong Bang to discuss about draft Law on Statistics amendment bill. [video " height="1080" mp4="http://beta.red.org.vn/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/RED-Hội-thảo-Một-số-vấn-đề-trong-dự-thảo-Luật-Thống-kê-sửa-đổi-08-2015-1.mp4"][/video] Read more: > Đại đoàn kết: Workshop on Statistical Law  > Radio & Television Station of Ba Ria-Vung Tau: Workshop “Problems in draft Law on Statistics amendment bill” > Economics and Forecasting: “To cease the obsession with archievements via artifical data” > SBTN: “Statistical law amendment bill’s limiting activities of non-government agency” > Đại biểu Nhân dân: “To increase independence feature of state’s agencies” > Báo điện tử Đảng Cộng sản Việt Nam: “Problems in draft Law on Statistics amendment bill” > Người bảo vệ quyền lợi: “Statistical law amendment bill limits most of the virtual pressure on statistics” > CafeF: “Fate of General Statistics Office of Vietnam still uncertain”