We don't know how to make our data count
Newsmaker: Pali Lehohla on policymaking and the poor use of stats
Country’s stats chief bemoans poor use of facts in policymaking
Outgoing statistician-general Pali Lehohla says the government has made poor use of the data Stats SA has provided to shape policy and improve service delivery. "They don't know how to handle the data, to interrogate it and to understand it," he says. "As government you need to know and understand these numbers in order to deal with the purpose of politics, which is delivering services, and delivering them in the best way possible." Its failure to use the data more effectively has resulted in policies not being as factually based as they are in more economically successful countries such as China. He says StatsSA must shoulder part of the blame for not doing enough to educate the users of its data. "Statisticians are not the best communicators. They just throw the data over the fence and say the politicians must catch it." He agrees it is the job of a professional civil service to guide the politicians, but has a low opinion of its performance. "Those people are not doing a good job...
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