Stefanus Nashama
The Namibian Statistics Agency (NSA) clarified that N$250 million is required to conduct at least one large survey every year, in addition to the normal operations and statistics currently produced by the agency.
The normal operations include the National Accounts, the National Consumer Price Index, sectoral reports, and trade statistics.
The NSA statistician-general, Alex Shimuafeni, clarified a media report that said the NSA is having difficulty releasing national statistics promptly due to insufficient funding.
“NSA has been producing timely statistics since its inception in 2012. The figure of N$ 250 million is rather an ideal amount required to be doing at least one large survey every year,” he said.
He said the government, through the National Planning Commission (NPC), has supported the NSA throughout the years, and the agency is not struggling to release the national statistics.
He defines timely statistics as those that are released as soon as possible after collection.
He referred to the current trend of using administrative records as a new method of data collection, which the NSA has started evaluating as more cost-effective.
Shimuafeni said while it cannot always replace certain surveys and certainly cannot substitute for the Census at this point.
“The NSA has done so with the 2023 Population and Housing Census, of which the reference night was 24 September 2023, and the preliminary report (which is the first report to provide information of how much the population is as well as the number of households) was released on 13 March 2024.
“The second batch of the Census report will be released later this year – a timeline that is in good benchmarking as subsequent reports are normally released over a year after the preliminary report due to further analysis to be made (as some of the neighbouring countries did with their 2022 Census reports, which were released in 2024),” explained Shimuafeni.
