Leader's Statements in Meeting with Officials of the Population and Housing Census Plan

In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

Welcome, gentlemen and ladies. God willing, you will be successful. Mr. Dr. Adel Azar's statements were scholarly and indicative of complete mastery over the subject, and God willing, there will be sufficient effort to advance this important and significant work.

What I want to convey is that statistics are vital for the country's planning; that is, if there are no statistics, planning is not possible; even if there is a planning document, its content will be something that does not conform to reality and will be erroneous. Therefore, statistics are the backbone of planning. It does not matter whether the planning is economic, cultural, social, political, or even diplomatic. All types of planning depend on statistics. If we do not know what we have, how we have it, and with what characteristics we have it, we will never be able to plan for the future; this is clear and obvious; everyone should feel this; both the people and especially the institutions should know this.

The role of the people - which I will refer to later - is a reactive role; that is, you take the census form to the people, they respond to you, and that is the end of it; however, the role of the relevant institutions is a continuous role; continuous cooperation, continuous assistance. The Central Statistical Office is a research center. The mobilization based on this data and the use of this data and the feedback, these are the tasks of various institutions that must cooperate with the Statistical Office. Therefore, everyone must cooperate.

Well, what should we do to have accurate and precise statistics? The best way, or perhaps it can be said that the only way, is the census; going to the people, asking the people. Therefore, with this syllogism that has been laid out, we conclude that the census is a necessity for the future of the country; it is considered essential for correct planning and for the country to benefit from a logical, reasonable, and desirable future. Therefore, the census is something very important.

The census has two sides: one side is you, who are the questioners; the other side is the people. Each has its own responsibilities. What the people, God willing, should pay attention to is to provide accurate and precise statistics, to give correct answers. In all the sections where questions are asked, the answers must be precise and correct. And I hereby request our dear people to fully cooperate in this regard; that is, to accept the census officer, to answer his questions, to cooperate with him, so that, God willing, this form is filled out correctly. This pertains to the role of the people.

What pertains to you is to pursue the work accurately, scientifically, and completely objectively and impartially. No motivation - whether political motivation or various motivations that may exist - should affect the statistics, the processing of statistics, and the inference from statistics. Of course, part of the statistics in any country may have a classification of information - it may be confidential, very confidential - but many do not; they do not have a confidential aspect. In all forms of information classification, the work of the statistical office must be accurate, scientific, and conform to reality. The statistics of households, the statistics of trends, the statistics of assets, the statistics of employment and unemployment, the statistics of literacy and illiteracy - all these things that are questioned - must be pursued impartially so that the various planning institutions can trust them. You speak of trust in this institution; this trust can be secured by the statistical office itself. You must practically show that in processing data and inferring from data, you are completely impartial; that is, you are truly following reality; you show exactly what exists. If this happens, God willing, complete trust will also be established.

I have previously advised, and I will advise again, that various institutions of the country should not rush in providing various statistics on different subjects - statistics on addiction, statistics on unemployment, statistics on literacy and illiteracy, statistics on those afflicted with certain diseases - they should let the responsible institution inform them based on what has been derived from realities; then they can announce based on that statistics if they wish; if they want to plan based on that, they can plan. That is, trust should be placed in the Central Statistical Office.

Therefore, your work is very good, it is important, and it is beneficial for the country; God willing, it will be carried out well. Census officers should be advised to face families with complete patience, observing Islamic ethics, and ask questions; the people, God willing, should respond with complete patience, and this work should reach its conclusion.

God willing, you will be successful.