By Toby McIntosh
The International Monetary Fund says the Tanzanian government should repeal a law making it a criminal offense to criticize official statistics.
The IMF’s position is explicitly stated for the first time in a report prepared by the IMF staff and reviewed March 18 by the IMF Executive Board.
The Tanzanian government vetoed release of the Article IV report, a move allowable under IMF rules.
But the report leaked. Its full text, broadly critical of government economic policies, has now been published online by opposition lawmaker Zitto Kabwe from Kigoma Urban. The government has since protested that the IMF refused to accept its input and said that talks are ongoing. The IMF is not commenting further after having disclosed the Tanzanian veto. (See EYE story.)
While the IMF’s comments on the statistics law are minor in the context of the broad IMF policy criticisms, they are the IMF first open objections to the law, having previously said only that it was asking questions. The World Bank in October of 2018 voiced objections, saying it was “deeply concerned” about the statistics laws and held up a relevant loan. (See Eye story.) It has reiterated these concerns in light of Tanzanian official comments. (See most recent EYE story.)
The IMF report states:
- Statistics. Lastly, the formulation of credible economic policies requires timely, transparent, and high-quality data. In this regard, urgent steps are required to improve the national accounts. In addition, to improve the quality and instill confidence on official data, the staff urges the authorities to ensure an open and independent statistics agency and to amend the Statistics Act to liberalize the use, production, and publication of data (both official and nonofficial) and remove the criminalization of publishing statistics that differ from official ones.
The amendments to the Statistics Act, passed Sept. 10, 2018, criminalize the dissemination of “any statistical information which is intended to invalidate, distort or discredit official statistics.” Offenses are punishable by a $6,000 fine or a three-year prison sentence.
In five places within the Article IV report, the government’s arguments are summarized under “Authorities’ Views.”
Regarding the statistics law, the report says, “Lastly, the authorities justified the amendments to the Statistics Act as a way to preserve the quality and accuracy of data. Regarding this and other recent legislation that in the view of the staff departs from best practice, the authorities did not indicate that they would reconsider them at this point.”
Tanzanian officials have said they are preparing regulations to interpret the statistics law. No such rules have appeared, however, and critics say rules are unlikely to solve the problem.
The IMF report suggests other transparency reforms — for the judicial system and concerning property rights. It states:
- Steps to reduce state contract alteration and improve the quality of the judiciary need to be undertaken. It is essential to promote rule-based governance by limiting the room for discretion and arbitrary decisions. For instance, court data/statistics should be readily available and published in the annual audit report. Regarding property rights, land rights should be registered in a publicly available register, while enforcing systematic and fair compensation at market prices in cases of expropriation would reduce the incidence of land disputes. In addition, there should be simplified procedures for simple debt enforcement cases as this would have positive effects on investment and access to credit. Lastly, there is a need to build capacity in business law for judges, clerks, lawyers and bailiffs to ensure better monitoring of judicial procedures and execution of judicial decisions.
