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The high-powered 17-members of National Statistical Council (NSC) could not render any output to the government during the last 18 months after its re-structuring, reports BDNEWS.
The council headed by Planning Minister M Saifur Rahman failed to hold any meeting since August 2004 when the government restructured it for assisting the government by providing strategic guidelines on various issues, official sources said.
The Planning Secretary is the vice-president in the re-structured NSC, where Bangladesh Bank Governor, Chairman of the National Board of Revenue (NBR), Member of the General Economic Division, eight secretaries of different ministries, and heads of Dhaka University Statistics, Economics and Geography departments are the members.
"The ministry told us to prepare working papers for a meeting of the council during the third quarter of 2005, but the meeting deferred for unknown reasons," said Jubdul Haque, director of the Bureau of Bangladesh Statistics (BBS) that acts as the member secretariat of the NSC.
Since then there has been no move to hold such a meeting, he said.
The government re-structured the council by issuing a gazette notification on August 21, 2004, to improve the government's statistics and its utilisation as well.
Although the gazette notification mentioned holding of at least one meeting a year, the committee failed to sit even once since its formation.
"I just know that I am included in such a committee, but am yet to attend any meeting," Chairman of the Statistics Department of Dhaka University Professor Motasem Billah, told the news agency.
"The meeting is not being held due to the minister's various engagements," said a committee member requesting anonymity.
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