Waqavonovono expected to make a statement on the data collected on ethnicity in the 2017 Census

Government Statistician Epeli Waqavonovono is expected to make a statement on Monday on his earlier comments that they had collected data on ethnicity in the 2017 Census.

Waqavonovono is currently attending the 49^th session of the UN Statistics Commission in New York and will arrive in the country this weekend.

Meanwhile Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum has stressed in parliament that there is no data available based on ethnicity from the 2017 Census, no data has been collected based on ethnicity and he says that no data will be collected along these lines.

Sayed-Khaiyum made this clear while responding to Opposition Leader Ro Teimumu Kepa’s question on why the Fiji Bureau of Statistics cannot release the data on ethnicity from the 2017 census since issues on health, education and social welfare are impacted by ethnicity.

The Attorney General says development and government services should be based on need, not on race.

Ro Teimumu Kepa says the data is needed to assist people who are lagging behind in development and to deal with issues like lifestyle diseases.

Sayed-Khaiyum says Ro Teimumu has an enormous misunderstanding that we cannot have economic development or social policies implemented without having a reference to ethnicity.

He says this is incorrect.

The Citizens’ Constitutional Forum is today calling for clarity with regards to data on ethnicity from the 2017 Census.

CCF’s Chief Executive Officer, Bulutani Mataitawakilai made the call after the Attorney General informed parliament that data on ethnicity was not collected in the 2017 Census.

However CCF says the Census Commissioner Epeli Waqavonovono has publicly said in January this year that data on ethnicity was collected and the Fiji Bureau of Statistics was waiting on a directive from a higher authority to release the information.

Mataitawakilai said the contradicting statements were concerning to organisations like the CCF, who had legitimate use for data on ethnicity and had communicated their desire to access this data to the Fiji Bureau of Statistics.

He stated that data on ethnicity was a valuable resource used to inform the development programs of Civil Society Organisations, Government and international NGOs.

We have sent questions to Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.