NSO launches four-year plan, other technical documents

By CLARISSA MOI
THE National Statistical Office launched its four-year corporate plan and other key technical documents with the aim of mitigating its ongoing issues and challenges, acting statistician John Igitoi says.
Speaking during its launching in Port Moresby on Thursday, Igitoi said the office had been less effective over the last five years in delivering its core responsibilities as the office faced many challenges while its operations had been turbulent and disrupted.
“It is incumbent upon myself as the acting national statistician to stabilise the volatility and mitigate the challenges that weakened NSO for extended periods,” Igitoi said.
“The launch of the NSO corporate plan 2020-2023 was basically to inform the Government, stakeholders, development partners and the public that NSO has reinvigorated determination to drive out of the doldrums to undertake its core responsibilities of producing key official statistics and indicators.
“So during my one-year acting tenure, five supporting documents to the mandate and the Government directive among others were specifically developed for these purposes.”
The documents included:

• 2009-2010 household income and expenditure survey evaluation report – an assessment of all aspects of this survey;
• THE NSO-tailored finance, policies and procedures manual – a public financial management guide for NSO staff involved in handling its finances.
• NSO in a nutshell – which provides a summary of what NSO was made for; and
• OTHER technical publications such as national accounts figure. Igitoi said NSO’s core problems and issues were identified and they had charted the way forward through the development of its corporate plan and addressing the financial mismanagement issues through the finance policies and procurement manual.