Planning, Finance reject Federal Bureau of Statistics' poverty figures
Daily Times, Zamir Haider
1/28/2003

ISLAMABAD: The Planning and Finance divisions on Monday rejected the Federal Bureau of Statistics' (FBS) Household Income Expenditure Survey (HIES), which put more than 40 percent of the country’s population below the poverty line.

“The HIES was completed in December 2002 but had some mistakes in it and due to this, donor agencies declared the survey flawed and controversial,” sources told Daily Times. The survey’s major flaw was declaring Balochistan second on the poverty list, which was not acceptable especially in the given situation as the province was badly hit with drought. “The corrected version of the FBS report took the poverty number higher, but it was rejected and the FBS was again asked to conduct the survey.”

Official sources at the FBS were of the view that the final number on poverty would be available by the end February, since the survey had been re-started in Balochistan. “The donor agencies’ officials sit with FBS officials in their laboratories but still criticise the same figures,” sources said.

The figure of over 40 percent was much higher than the 1998-99 survey that put people below poverty line at 33 percent.

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