NBS ‘has no data’ to back Ngige’s claim of seven million new jobs

Yemi Kale, statistician general of the federation, says the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has no data on the job creation claims made by Chris Ngige, minister of labour and productivity.

The data chief made this statement in an interview with Abang Mercy.

Ngige had earlier said the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration has created seven million jobs through its programmes.

But Kale said during the interview: “We don’t have the data anyway, that data of is 6 or 7 million, we don’t have that. I can’t comment on what other data users or data producers say but I can comment on what we produce here as the official source of data.

“We have not produced any data on job creation, we produced data on people that were unemployed at the particular time and that is what we are sticking to.

“We don’t do politics at the NBS, the National Bureau of Statistics is the official source of data. Our law does not allow us to be countered. The law says very clearly that NBS is the official source of Nigerian data.

“Everybody else can have their opinion, they can do their own computations if they want to but when it comes to national data, the authoritative source, the custodian of all data is the NBS.

“So we don’t comment on what other people even ministers say as far as data is concerned. Our data is for evidence based policy and decision making and that is what we do.”