Minister Talks about Fair Reflection of Population’s Income

Last year, the country’s revenues were at the level of 37-40 billion manats, the State Statistics Committee said. But it did not say what part of this was obtained at the expense of the shadow economy.

This was said at  presentation of the EU twinning project on the improvement of the statistical system by the Minister of Labor and Social Protection of Population Salim Muslimov. According to him, statistics related to incomes, recipients of benefits and social assistance should be radically revised.

"In the Soviet times, there was a paragraph in the statistics reflecting the proceeds of corruption and bribery, which amounted to 5%. But there was no real economy, because it was planned. The current generation of people wants to know how their revenues are formed, because the level of poverty and the necessary social assistance depends on this. Today, poverty statistics at the national level is formed on the basis of data on recipients of social assistance (approximately 5.1% of families). But does this reflect the real living standards of the population and do the State Statistics Committee’s figures based on interviews correspond to the real data on the recipients of targeted social assistance? Not yet, but after the implementation of the twinning project a new approach to these indicators is expected. --17D-