Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom, Minister of Economic Planning and Regional Co-operation, on Monday warned directors and staff of the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) that the government would not tolerate laxity from them.

He noted that the reason why Vision 2020, the previous government's blueprint for socio-economic development, became a dormant development agenda was because the GSS and its collaborators failed to provide the necessary good quality and timely statistics to ensure its effective implementation, monitoring and evaluation.

"Unfortunately that which allowed that condition to exist is still present. My ministry will not tolerate such laxity from the GSS," he said.

"If you want to continue working with me then you must be prepared to provide what I need to perform my duty to the President and the nation."

Dr Nduom was speaking at a workshop organised by the National Advisory Committee of Producers and Users of Statistics (NACPUS) to mark Africa Statistics Day, which fell on November 18, under the theme: "Statistical Data as Input for Development Planning."

The Day was instituted by the ECOWAS Secretariat in 1988 and adopted by the OAU in 1990 to bring the relevance of statistical data to the doorstep, homes, offices and corridors of African peoples.

Dr Nduom noted that within the first year of the government, "I have observed that laxity in the GSS and National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) has not changed. But we have considered this year as a learning period for all of us.

"Next year, serious business begins and no such attitude will be countenanced, especially not in my ministry, which is currently being looked up to become the centre of knowledge to inform government and its partners at various stages of our national development."

Dr Nduom said NDPC and the GSS would undergo vigorous restructuring to ensure that they played their role effectively. The restructuring process would seek to strengthen their human and technical capacities, especially at the district levels.

This was to ensure that statistics were generated in the districts and effectively applied to districts and regional level development programmes, which would go a long way to have an impact on the national development agenda.

"If you came to the NDPC six months ago, you could not find even two computers that could be used to gather meaningful statistics for internal analysis. There was no network that could be used to share information. There was no data-base containing information on critical indicators of performance at the national or local level."

Dr Nduom said this situation, among other things, such as the politicisation of the NDPC left much to be desired, adding that the ministry had initiated moves to correct the existing anomaly.

He noted that good quality, adequate, relevant, reliable and timely statistical data to were important to national development planning, saying, "good statistical data is the link between good planning and good results".

Dr Joe Abbey, Executive Director of Centre for Policy Analysis (CEPA), who presided, said much as African governments were within their rights to demand freedom from donor conditionalities, "we cannot just tell the donors to give us money for our development and shut up".

He said donor funding amounted to 70 to 80 per cent of development spending in most Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC), adding that Ghana was not different.