Search
Close this search box.
GBC
GHANA WEATHER

GSA promises to work with the Government Statistician

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
WhatsApp
Pinterest

The President of the Ghana Statistical Association (GSA), Prof. Nicholas N. N. Nsowah-Nuamah, has pledged the association’s readiness to work with and support the new Government Statistician (GS), Prof. Samuel Kobina Annim and the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) in their endeavor to produce accurate, reliable and quality statistics to serve as the basis for informed decision making by government and other policy makers.

He reiterated that, “the human resource of the GSA can be tapped into by the GSS in its bid to deliver quality statistics to the nation”.

He again assured the  Prof.  Annim of members willingness to support at all times adding that the GSA is the back bone of GSS.

Prof. Nsowah-Nuamah said these during a courtesy call on the New Government Statistician in his office upon hearing of his appointment to the position and also to introduce his executives to him.

He talked briefly about the association and the phases it had been through since its formation as well as plans to establish the Institute of Chartered Statisticians (ICS) in Ghana.

The GS was made a Fellow of the Association as enshrined in their constitution. The two institutions has an existing collaboration which has led to both working together over the years needed to be strengthened for mutual benefits.

The two Deputy Government Statisticians, Mrs. Araba Forson and David Kombat are also part of the Executives of the Association.

The GSA would be having its 2nd International Statistics Conference later this year in collaboration with the GSS.

The Organizing Secretary for Northern Sector, Dr. Smart Sarpong, on his part laid emphasis on the collaboration between the GSA and the GSS saying it was in that spirit of collaboration that “we celebrated the 2018 Africa Statistics Day and hosted the Statistics Conference”.

According to him, some media houses invited some GSA representatives to train their journalists on understanding Statistics, and how to communicate same to the public.

He also said GSA would always be in a better position to defend the good works of the GSS as “independent data producer” for the country.

The Vice President of the GSA, for the Northern Sector of Ghana, Prof. Saeed Bashiru emphasized on the need to have strong collaboration between Academia and Industry.

He was quick to add that it was in that regards GSA was championing same and needed the support from all, including the GSS, to succeed.

The Government Statistician, in his response, said he was happy to have the Statisticians declare their support for him and that he met a section of the Economists in the country and realized that there was the need to meet with the people in Academia.

He was also of the opinion that there was the need to have “functional engagement” so as to monitor data quality in the country.

Professor Annim expressed the desire of the GSS to have about 600 personnel trained in STATA and CSPRO, to be stationed at the district levels to be able to clean and run analysis of the data in the upcoming Population & Housing Census.

He informed the GSA of his desire to start ranking the MMDAs in their level of data production and usage as a basis for decision making by the Assemblies and implored the GSA to position itself for that exercise as an independent body.

He however, bemoaned the situation where technical persons, or experts, were still being brought from outside the country to provide technical support to the GSS after all these years and said that “this should end given the expertise that we had within Ghana, in the GSA and beyond”.

The GS was extremely delighted of the initiatives of the GSA and pledged his readiness to liaise with it in his quest for quality data in the country.

He promised to give them a draft Statistics bill document for their study and input before it is laid before parliament.

Story by Edzorna Francis Mensah

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

ADVERTISEMENT