GDP Rebasing: Questions Jonathan and Okonjo-Iweala must answer By Dele Sobowale

“If a man stands with one foot in a bucket of boiling water, the other in a bucket of ice, statistically, he is comfortable -” VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS p 233).
Before going into the substance of the matter, rebasing the economy, that is, permit me to make a few observations which are pertinent to the discussion, as the readers will soon discover.
That entry, in the Book of Quotations, was made after years of observing the uses and abuses of statistical data like the figures just released after rebasing the Nigerian economy by the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS.
That exercise also reminds me of the quip by Mark Twain, 1835-1910, the incomparable writer of one of our best childhood classics – THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN. Mark Twain, who had an abiding distrust for statisticians, once said, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics -” (BOOK OF QUOTATIONS p 130).
Twain was not, and is not, the only person to take a pessimistic view of statistics, especially when released by bodies, particularly governments, which have lost credibility. Even, when the figures presented are true and correct, and I am not saying these are at the moment, the messenger becomes part of the message and both are thrown into the garbage can immediately.
The Statistician-General of the Federation, Yemi Kale, must be deeply disturbed at the degree of skepticism which had greeted the release of those figures last week. Nothing hurts a professional more than seeing his best efforts publicly rubbished by the people he intended them to help. For that he has my sympathies; but that is all. He, like every public official, must carry his cross.
With little doubt of contradiction, it is true that rebasing is more an exercise in statistics and less of an economic process. It mostly seeks to correct a lot of assumptions about an economy without immediately conferring any economic advantage on the people – as most people, including government officials, suppose.
Indeed, Kale can observe the tendency to exaggerate the benefits, if any, of rebasing in some of the comments made by the Minister of Finance, Dr. (Mrs) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, regarding the increase in in-flow of Foreign Direct Investment that might follow the exercise.

For a former Managing Director of the World Bank (Okonjo-Iweala), this is an inexcusable attempt to turn information into propaganda. It was not surprising, therefore, that the day after the new GDP, $510billion, was announced, the World Bank felt called upon to correct the misinformation, deliberate or inadvertent, by Okonjo-Iweala.
According to experts from the World Bank, policies and profitability, as well as security were more critical elements in the determination of Foreign Direct Investments; and not the size of GDP.  I will return to this later.
So, if Kale is in search of an answer to why most Nigerian received his figures with disbelief, bordering on derision, he can start by reading again what Federal Government officials are saying about what this new figure represents – which are mostly fallacious.
The Statistician General of the Federation knows that I am one of the few Nigerians who were not surprised by the figures released. In fact, it was expected – almost to the letter. As far back as last year, the NBS had hinted at these figures and the announcement, then, tucked inside newspapers, had attracted very little attention.
But I was among the few Nigerians, economists or laymen, who paid close attention. I even made a comment about the exercise, at the time, which resulted in a long conversation, lasting almost two hours, on the phone, between Kale and I.
My misgivings about the entire exercise were made known to the Statistician-General. So, unlike most commentators, my reactions now are by no means, spontaneous and ill-considered. I have had almost a whole year, waiting for these figures to be released in order to join the debate on it publicly.
One thing which strikes me forcefully, now is the fact that I was under the impression that the hints, given last year, did not represent the final position; that those were preliminary figures which might change. But, what was released, last week, was almost the same set of data which were labeled ‘Work-In-Process’, last year. Very little has been changed.
Then, as now, it was claimed that the Nigerian economy was already bigger than that of South Africa and all the other countries we have now overtaken in one leap of giant data. The coincidence between the lowering of noise, for almost a year, about VISION 20:2020, and our new status as the 26th largest economy, from 39th last year, is the sort of thing which had left most Nigerians scratching their heads in disbelief.
Obviously, the NBS has a lot of explanations to give to persuade Nigerians that the motives behind the release of these disputed figures, at this time, are professional and honourable.
However, before closing this first part in the series, on rebasing, let me leave all Nigerians, including government officials, with some questions to ponder. Some of those questions were asked, last year, without satisfactory answers being provided.
If I recall accurately, Kale had pointed out that rebasing should be undertaken every four/five years and that the last one was conducted in 1990 – almost 15 years ago. If that is true, one exercise should have been conducted in 2009 and another in 2004. Okonjo-Iweala was the Finance Minister in 2004. Why was the rebasing exercise not conducted at the time? Or is she just hearing about this for the first time in her career?
President Goodluck Jonathan was the Vice-President in 2009 and he became President in 2010. Why was there no rebasing at that time? How many times since independence has the rebasing exercise been carried out? We need to have answers to these questions in order to be convinced that the exercise is totally professional and was not conducted for ulterior motives.
Finally, how much was spent on the exercise? Was the amount budgeted and approved by the National Assembly before it was undertaken?…
To be continued.

vanguard