17 Feb 2019

The Ministry of Transport and Communications and Statistics Botswana have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to cement collaboration aimed at pursuing effective and efficient production.

Speaking during the MoU signing on February 15, statistician general, Dr Burton Mguni, said the aim of the collaboration was to ensure provision of timely, accurate and relevant transport and communications as well as other related statistics that were vital for the nation’s policy formulation, evidence based decision making and monitoring and evaluation.

He said the MoU would serve as a precursor to activities to be carried out jointly on a collaborative basis.

Among these activities, he said, were innovative data processing, dissemination and statistical capacity building; measurement of access and usage of transport and communications infrastructure and services; and the general improvement of transport and communications sector statistics plans or strategies.

“Official statistics are important in providing direction and guidance  to all thematic areas of the economy in supporting national and international agenda such as the NDP11, Vision 2036 and Africa Agenda 2063 among others. This therefore results in ever increasing demands for timely official statistics,” Dr Mguni said.

Therefore, he  called for high innovation and use of information technology to automate data provision as well as use of information technology to automate data provision and access to information.

He further noted that the collaboration was consistent with implementation of the Botswana Strategy for the Development of Statistics (BSDS) which was launched in October 2015 with the aim of strengthening the coordination of the National Statistical System.

For his part, permanent secretary, Mr Kabelo Ebineng, said the signing of the MoU came at an opportune time where the data generated by the ministry would be authenticated by Statistics Botswana to be used by researchers, academia and international bodies.

He said data collection and analysis was important since the country would have a better understanding of the performance of its economic sectors, trade flows and would also help investors who were interested in the country’s sectors to identify where investment was required based on comprehensive evidence.

He added that the transport and communication sectors were an essential component of the economy with strong effects on development and welfare of the population. 

As such, infrastructure development on ICT or transport must be guided by authentic information, and SB was a strategic key organization regarding the development and management of official statistics. Ends