Head of statistics bureau quizzed by FNC on missing data

ABU DHABI // The chairwoman of the National Bureau of Statistics was yesterday quizzed by FNC members over failures to provide figures on important issues such as national cancer rates.

Reem Al Hashimi, also a Minister of State, was asked by Hamad Al Rahoumi (Dubai) why most of the information requested by the FNC was unavailable.

"For more than a year now, this information that we ask for, we only get 20 per cent of it," Mr Al Rahoumi said.

"We believe this centre should have all the information.

"We should talk about 2021 vision now and strategic goals based on these statistics.

"I do not believe the thoughts of the country to reach the 2021 vision when we have a problem with the statistics centre.

"I believe we have a problem to get numbers for the country."

He asked the minister if the bureau faced problems in gathering numbers from different entities.

"We don't want the centre to just be a building," Mr Al Rahoumi said. "Nothing should be secret from us, and sometimes we discuss things with no numbers. The centre should get all numbers."

Ms Al Hashimi did not respond when asked whether there was a lack of cooperation from other entities, but said statistics and measures of recording data varied from one city to another.

"Cancer, for example - each emirate has different measurements for this," she said.

Ms Al Hashimi told members she was willing to continue this discussion with them and agreed that the availability of statistics was important for the FNC and nationals.

osalem@thenational.ae