Fatić: Claims about reducing the number of registered persons are arbitrary

Responding to the statement by Slavka Popović, Deputy Director of the Agency for Statistics of BiH, that almost 300,000 people will be removed from the total number of registered residents in BiH (3,791,622) according to the 2013 Census, Fadil Fatić, Deputy Director of the Agency for Statistics of BiH, called it an "arbitrary opinion that means nothing to him." He spoke to the BiH news agency Patria (NAP) about the current data processing.

- The data processing has not been completed; we are only in the process of scanning the census forms, so far only 20 to 30 percent of the census forms have been scanned, and all information about invalidating census forms is premature and based on personal opinion – Fatić explained to NAP.

According to Fatić, there can be no talk of so-called "statistical data cleaning" at this moment for two reasons.

- First, the entire process of scanning the census forms needs to be completed, and then batch controls will be performed. What I can say is that there will be dilemmas. We have international monitoring and the Census Law, based on which we will strictly define what data the census forms must contain, where the data is contradictory, and which census forms are valid. Only when this is completed can we talk about invalidating census forms. Then we proceed to the procedure of potential invalidation of census forms. All information presented before this process is arbitrary – Fatić concluded.