Dear Editor,

The Bureau of Statistics (BoS) is Guyana’s premier statistical entity. Its website proclaims that it is “a semi-autonomous organization and the central statistical arm of Government.” The “central statistical arm” is a “statutory body” that falls under the purview of the Ministry of Finance, which supplies its funding. Funding of statutory bodies does not have to be approved by Parliament because the “National Assembly has already provided [funding] on an ongoing basis, through the approval granted by specific legislation …” Statutory bodies “are included in the [annual] Estimates for information only” (2025 Estimates, Vol. 1: XI). Statutory bodies, including the BoS, are deemed critical to the functioning of the government, which is why their funding is guaranteed.

What is the job of the BoS? Its website says that the mission of the BoS is “to efficiently disseminate, analyse and produce statistical information covering economic, social and environmental issues in Guyana, and to serve its customers in a courteous manner.” The two important aspects of the mission statement, to repeat, are “to efficiently disseminate, analyse and produce statistical information” and “to serve its customers in a courteous manner.” Does the BoS efficiently and effectively deliver on its mission? This essay is not an exhaustive inquiry into those questions, but the evidence thus far suggests that the answer is “no.”

To begin with, let’s examine the expenditure of the “central statistical arm of Government.” During the APNU+AFC Government, funding moved from $325.41 million in 2015 to $547.76 in 2020. That’s an increase of 68.3 percent. The current PPP Government channeled more dollars to the BoS, with funding rising from $807.68 million in 2021 to $1,745.00 million in 2025, an increase of 116.10 percent (see figure). Looked at from another angle, the APNU+AFC spent an average of $579.03 million on the BoS, the PPP $1,703.62 million. This huge volume of spending raises a fundamental question: why does the PPP spend twice as much as the APNU+AFC on the BoS for the same substandard work (data and service to “customers”)?

BoS: Steep increase in funding but same sub-standard data ($M)

Source: Annual Estimates, 2013 to 2024

“Wages and salaries” and “Employment Costs” in 2022 were four times as much as the previous year, soaring from $682.45 million to $2,737.19 million in 2022. The jump was most likely due to the 2022 census, but these two sets of cost were also more than $2,130 million in 2023, 2024 and again in 2025. Neither the Estimates nor the Budget documents explain why the PPP Government continues to spend so much more on these two categories of employment costs.

Moving from funding to the principal job of the BoS, a large portion of the data on its website is outdated. For example, most categories of data, but especially the one called “Demography Social & Vital Statistics,” which includes immunization, nutrition, education, etc., are in some instances more than a decade outdated. For instance, data on immunization by region are available for only 2007 to 2017, education and school enrollment only from 2004 to 2008. Long outdated data raises an important question: why is the lag so long? Is it because the raw data, which should be available, have not been processed or are there other reasons for not publishing these data? We do not know.

Beyond outdated data, there is the crucial issue of granularity of the data. For example, the time-period of most data is one full year. I fail to understand why some data are not available on a monthly or quarterly basis. Most data are not disaggregated by ethnicity and region. Then there is a great deal of important data that are absent from the BoS website. For example, there are no data on life expectancy and numerous illnesses, including mental health and the principal kinds of cancers that maim, incapacitated or kill Guyanese. This absence of data is also true for the range of infectious or other chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) that plague the nation. What percent of the population is overweight or obese (by age group)? What percent of the population (by age group) regularly consume alcohol? What is the literacy rate by ethnic group?

Data on the terms of trade, effective exchange rates, total number of births and deaths at the national and regional levels, migration, poverty and inequality are all unavailable, let alone available by age group, ethnicity and education. I would like to see data on GDP, revenue and expenditure by region. How much does Region 3 contribute to the national coffer, and how much does it get in return, for example? Now that the economy is booming, undergoing structural change and becoming more complex, it’s a huge injustice that the requisite data to calculate Human Development Index (HDI) are unavailable. Regional HDI could be used as one of the criteria to allocate Central Government expenditure, something that some poor countries – such as Bhutan – are doing.

I am troubled that the government invests in surveys and data – its own, money or borrowing from non-Guyanese entities or both – and then fails to disclose the results. If one clicks on the “Survey” tab of the BoS website, there is a survey called “Household Budget Survey …” Clicking on it, one gets this message: “The Bureau of Statistics (BoS) conducted a Household Budget and Living Condition Survey in all Ten … regions of Guyana. This is a comprehensive survey which combines the collection of household income and expenditure, with the living conditions of households. The survey commenced in November 2018 and was … in November 2019. The survey has two (2) main objectives: to collect information from the country’s households and families on their buying habits (expenditures), income and other characteristics; to revise the list of goods and services in the household’s consumption “basket”, and consequently the weighting patterns of the CPI…”

It’s now seven years since 2018 and the results of the survey are not yet on the BoS website. I know that the survey, funded by the Inter-American Development Bank, was done and that the report was prepared because the IDB has selectively and guardedly extracted bits and pieces from the report and included them in various reports on the Americas. As to the “customers” of the BoS, I wonder who they are. If one writes the BoS about a data issue, one does not get a reply, let alone service in “a courteous manner.”

Concluding, my impression is that neither a PPP nor a PNC government has any need for data. Both apparently detest or at least are not drawn to data-driven decisions and policies but operate on whims, fancies, perceptions, beliefs and self-interest. Aside from supplying the basis for sound decisions and policies, the availability of a broad range of data, sufficiently granular and timely, will help to counter misinformation, disinformation and “alternative facts.”

Yours sincerely,

Ramesh Gampat