Minister for Economy Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.

The Minister for Economy while responding to an end-of-week statement highlighted the 2019-20 HIES assessment is based purely on ethnicity.

Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says the Household Income and Expenditure Survey should also focus on the progress achieved over the years.

He adds this progressive assessment includes the number of doctors, nurses, engineers, foresters amongst other jobs in the country.

“They don’t talk about that, they only talk about ethnicity. When we want to look at local development, we have to be able to look at our local and national capacity to be able to ensure that we have the deliverables.”

The former Fiji Bureau of Statistics Chief Executive in a statement clarified the inclusion of ethnicity in the 2019-20 HIES is not about segregation.

Kemueli Naiqama claims the report is not about race, but about providing transparent and independent disaggregated official statistics for all users.

He adds that the sampling methodology used in the 2019-20 HIES is recognized internationally.

He further clarifies that the 2017 Census was only used as a frame to randomly select the 600 Enumeration Areas.

Naiqama in his statement claims that enumerators went through two weeks of training which include pilot testing of questionnaires to understand the purpose of the survey.

He claims that supervisors had to forego their overtime meal entitlements and subsistence allowance despite attending evening and weekend interviews.

The former CEO claims the assessment is designed to provide policymakers with quality information to design efficient and effective anti-poverty policies.

Naiqama reiterated that he carried out his responsibility as a trained statistician to the best of his ability without fear or favor and as a neutral civil servant.

He also says that the 2019-20 HIES also identifies areas in which relevant agencies can work together to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 1 which is “No Poverty” and “Leaving No One Behind”.

The Minister for Economy previously labeled the methodology used by FBOS to conduct the recent HIES as unreliable and flawed.

FBOS in its 2019-20 HIES provided the breakdown of the poverty rate in Fiji along the line of religion and ethnicity.

Sayed-Khaiyum says using a sample size based on ethnicity and religion is highly questionable and unreliable.