New Warning Letter: BiH Continues to Embarrass Itself by Not Publishing Census Results

The BiH Statistics Agency today informed the BiH Council of Ministers about all activities undertaken by the BiH Statistics Agency, based on the recommendations of the International Monitoring Operation (IMO) from 16.6.2015, with the aim of continuing the data processing and starting the publication of census results in 2015 as proposed by the IMO team, reports the Patria News Agency.

 

The Census Bureau of the BiH Statistics Agency, at its session held on 18.6.2015, carefully considered and accepted all recommendations of the IMO mission and included them in the Unified Data Processing Program for the census.

The entity statistical offices, the Federal Statistical Office of FBiH and the Republican Statistical Office of RS, even after clear recommendations from the International Monitoring Operation, have not accepted the Unified Program proposed by the BiH Statistics Agency. 

On this occasion, the Chairman of the Management Board of the International Monitoring Operation and Director of the Directorate for International Cooperation of EUROSTAT, Pieter Everaers, sent a letter on 26.6.2015 to the statistical institutions in BiH and the Chairman of the BiH Council of Ministers, Denis Zvizdić, expressing disappointment with the reactions of the entity offices to the recommendations of the International Monitoring Operation (IMO) regarding the resolution of open issues in the processing of census results: the application of the set of rules for determining the permanent/resident population and the inclusion/exclusion of a certain number of census forms from further census data processing.

The BiH Statistics Agency, in accordance with the Census Law, proposed the Unified Program for Processing Census Material for the Census of Population, Households, and Dwellings in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2013 and submitted it to the entity statistical offices. The Federal Statistical Office of FBiH initially supported the proposed Unified Program, while the Republican Statistical Office of RS was against it.

The Agency forwarded the Unified Program, along with the comments from the entity offices, to the representatives of the International Monitoring Operation (IMO), who are supervising the census implementation in BiH, and to the BiH Council of Ministers. After analyzing the unified program, the Chairman of the IMO mission, Pieter Everears, sent a letter on 16.6.2015 with recommendations for resolving open issues, which the BiH Statistics Agency fully accepted and integrated into the Unified Program, and resubmitted it to the entity statistical offices and the IMO mission.

Representatives of the IMO mission confirmed that the Unified Program is fully aligned with all IMO recommendations and that the census results based on this defined Unified Program will be accepted by Eurostat and the IMO team, as it allows for the determination of the permanent population category for BiH and all lower administrative units.

The Federal Statistical Office of FBiH and the Republican Statistical Office of RS submitted their comments and disagreements on this latest version of the Unified Program, which incorporated the IMO mission's recommendations, to the IMO mission.

In response to these letters, Pieter Everears (26.6.2015) expressed great disappointment with the content of the letters from the entity offices. He also stated that the IMO team's intention was to provide technical recommendations in writing for resolving open issues, and that all recommendations were based on international and European standards.

These solutions had to be adopted by the statistical institutions in BiH in order to publish the data from the census conducted in the autumn of 2013, but since they did not, the IMO team proposed solutions in accordance with international standards and recommendations.

In light of all the above, and particularly the clear positions of the IMO team, the Census Bureau of the BiH Statistics Agency believes that the proposed Unified Program and IMO recommendations represent the only possible solution for completing the processing of census results in BiH. The proposed Unified Program is fully compliant with the Census Law, the Census Methodology, and international recommendations and standards.

In this regard, the Agency has proposed to the BiH Council of Ministers to support the continuation of activities on processing census results in accordance with the Unified Program and IMO recommendations, it was announced from the Agency.