Once again in less than a year, Labour has cast doubts about the credibility of the National Statistics Office. It did so when it questioned the overtime earnings figure the office had given to two newspapers as compared to that quoted by the Prime Minister in his budget speech. The office gave an explanation of what appeared to be a discrepancy and the issue seems to have been put aside now, suggesting that the explanation was satisfactory to Labour.

However, irrespective of the issue over this, it is somewhat disturbing that Labour continues to adopt a kind of attitude towards the NSO that suggests it does not have confidence in it. There is a difference between genuinely asking for clarification or explanation and questioning, directly or indirectly, the integrity of the NSO, as the Labour Party did in January, when it even accused it of tampering with statistics.

This time, Labour Party deputy leader Charles Mangion would have been quite in order to call for clarification of the overtime earnings figure but he went further when he said that the discrepancy, as he saw it then, created serious doubts about the reliability of information issued by the NSO. Now that hits directly at the heart of the office, whose role, as it rightly sees it, is "to contribute to a sustainable and orderly pattern of socio-economic development in Malta and in the European Union by excelling in the provision of relevant, timely and quality statistical information in a credible and coherent manner so as to enable decision making and knowledge accumulation at all levels and in all spheres of the community".

When, at the beginning of the year, Labour went all out to hit at the credibility of the office, the controversy degenerated to such a level that it led to the resignation of the head, Gordon Cordina. Dr Cordina could have very well resisted the onslaught, but he decided to step down because he believed the matter had gone beyond a mature, technical discussion. This is what generally happens when, in a bid to win political mileage, a party does not measure its words and actions. The end result was that the NSO lost the services of Dr Cordina and is now still without a director general.

The post has been taken up, in an acting capacity, by Reno Camilleri, who is also the chairman of the Malta Statistical Authority. Mr Camilleri is indisputably an authority in his work, and, clearly, he would have wished to see the post of director general being filled immediately after it became vacant. The fact that the post has remained vacant for so long now indicates the damage that may have been caused by Labour's attempts to politicise issues over statistics. With Malta's membership of the European Union, the work of the office has obviously considerably increased as, in the words of the authority, the NSO assumes new responsibilities in line with the acquis and, at the same time, updates and introduces new methodologies as determined by EU regulations.

In its report for the year, the office said that over the past seven years it had not only built up its output in terms of quantity but had also directed its attention towards improving quality by giving prominence to methodological updates, especially where the harmonisation of Maltese statistics with their European counterparts was involved. Rather than casting doubts about the office's credibility, therefore, it would be wise on the Labour Party's part to investigate any difficulty it may have over statistics with the NSO itself first before making its claims public.