MANY COUNTRIES attempt to inflate, or at the very least, maintain their international credit rating, to access cheaper credit as they borrow to continue to fund current deficits.
Not by directly influencing the rating agencies, but by hiding unemployment figures and literacy rates.
These actions are seen by many in power as essential, in their short-term thinking, to weather the hard times.
Statistically, unemployment can be counted with the use of: the number of persons actively seeking jobs through an unemployment benefits system, a count of new registrants in a national insurance scheme, and/or numbers calculated from business closures and field reports.
The delay in data collection can cause significant misinterpretations and its accuracy can only be challenged by auditing, which, in itself, is a very costly and lengthy process.
Developed countries have settled on a competitive approach by which governmental agencies’ data is constantly compared to data derived from economic intelligence units attached to universities or private sector associations.
To create false unemployment figures, one must first understand the methodology used and then alter it to fit the desired results.
To gain wide acceptability for the alteration, one must position it as if used by a more prestigious body. The more difficult the method and with the least accessibility to the authority, is the greater acceptability.
The politicians can now trumpet its use and repeat its claims until, and as it, suits their needs.
Counting the number of illiterate people in the population can negatively affect access to various international grants or soft loan programmes.
Literacy rates are baseline decision points to locating and developing industries in any geographic area.
Some governments actively pursue policies, implemented through their education system, to control literacy rates as to access international financial aid and/or lure particular industries.
Note that within a country widely considered to be developed, there are large geographic areas that are under developed with populations that would otherwise be described as illiterate.
Falsely reporting literacy figures by moving students through the system, constantly lowering the bar, is easily disguised by manipulating the accreditation system.
The population count can also be manipulated to indicate a very high percentage of registered births joining the public or private education system, ignoring the unregistered births.
The highest levels of efficiency built into the systems, managed by computerised database, is the greatest opportunity to manage the result, with one person having two birthdays per year or not being born at all, and/or education system dropouts deleted for the system by a death registration, because ones computer records indicate that, it is true.
The resulting effects of these statistical manipulations for short-term gains will in the long-term only bring, without sustainable jobs, profitable markets for exports and overall economic growth, a future trapped in a cycle of abject poverty.
TERRANCE JENNINGS
