![Attorney General and Minister for Economy Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum. [Image: Fijian Govt.]](https://www.fijivillage.com/news_images/11403992614089c74d1768e4eccd70.jpg)
Attorney General and Minister for Economy Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says the data released by the Fiji Bureau of Statistics in their 2019-2020 Housing Income and Expenditure Survey cannot be relied upon and he says there are huge integrity issues in respect of how they chose the sample.
Sayed-Khaiyum says there was a sample of 6,000 people from 199,688 families.
The Attorney General says they are not challenging poverty statistics because they want to know as much about it as possible and address the issue of poverty.
He says what they are challenging is the reliability of this kind of statistics and it has exposed the Bureau that they are now carrying out ethnic analysis based on a flawed system.
Sayed-Khaiyum says if we are going to start having compassion for people based on their ethnicity then we are losing our sense of humanity.
The Attorney General says if we look at the releases put out by some of the political parties, they have immediately jumped on the ethnic bandwagon.
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He says it is unfortunate that the Bureau has released the results of the 2019-2020 Housing Income and Expenditure Survey with ethnic and religious breakdown.
The Minister for Economy says in the report there is a map that shows where these samples were taken from and a number of them are from the interior, rural or maritime areas.
Sayed-Khaiyum says if the Bureau is basing this survey on the 2017 population census, then this is highly questionable because the 2017 census had no reliable ethnic data.
He says former Government Statistician Epeli Waqavonovono had said in 2018 that there was no reliable collection of data on ethnicity in the 2017 census and as a result no data on ethnicity could be accurately released.
The Minister for Economy says Waqavonovono had also said that many enumerators failed to ask for the respondents ethnic background and the data was instead based on the assumption of the enumerators.
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Sayed-Khaiyum says the report has not delved deeply into how they assumed that for these 6,000, they have some sort of ethnic representation.
He adds the report also has some basic mistakes.
The Attorney General says they appreciate any independent office carrying out a proper professional analysis of any data.
Sayed-Khaiyum says many people do not know that the government approved the new methodology of moving away from using the traditional income measure for welfare analysis to using consumption expenditure for poverty measurement.
He says this does not only look at how much money you have.
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