The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna today said the Census and Statistics Department of Sri Lanka has put its foot in the mouth when it announced that it would upgrade its GDP compilation method from next year to meet the international standards. 

JVP Leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake, a few months ago, raised a question in Parliament about Census and Statistics Department "massaging" vital statistics to paint a rosy picture about the country's economy. 

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"When the JVP came up with the allegation, the Census Department as well as the Finance Ministry strongly denied it. They said there was nothing wrong with compilation methods and statistics. If there is nothing wrong with the compilation method and statistics released by the Department, why are they trying to 'upgrade' it in such a hurry?" a senior JVP Parliamentarian asked. He said the move has further buttressed the JVP's allegation. 

“We are going to move the base year to 2010 from 2002 with a new updated classification using International Standards Industrial Classification,” D.C.A. Gunawardena,Head of Census and Statistics Department had told Reuters, referring to the United Nations system for classifying economic data.
“We hope to introduce the new method from the first quarter of next year. It will be compiled according to the latest international statistical standard for the national accounts.”

Meanwhile, The IMF last year said Sri Lanka’s national accounts “suffer from insufficient data sources and undeveloped statistical techniques” and the method for deriving gross domestic product at constant prices was “not satisfactory”.

Reuters, quoting the IMF, said it had been using the Government’s official historic data for its own estimates.