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The Ministry of Economy has confirmed that Fiji Bureau of Statistics Chief Executive Kemueli Naiqama’s contract has been terminated.

A statement from the Government confirms the Ministry through the Acting Permanent Secretary, Shiri Goundar made the decision based on the Bureau’s failure to comply with Section 5 of the Statistics Act 1961.

The Government says the FBOS is charged with the collection of statistics relating to any of the matters set out in Schedule 1 of the Statistics Act subject to the approval and direction of the Minister for Economy.

It further states that by exceeding the scope of data collection and ignoring fact-based methodology, Naiqama breached the terms of his contract with the Ministry.

Under his employment contract, he will be paid all salary and accrued entitlements for the period up to 15 September 2021.

The government states in an unfortunate blow to the Bureau’s credibility, Naiqama endorsed the publication of unverifiable information from the Housing Income and Expenditure Survey 2019-2020.

This related to ethnic and religious data that was revealed to be derived from erroneous sources, and which exceeded the established scope of the survey’s data collection.