Chairman of the Cabinet-appointed task force for the establishment of the National Statistical Institute of T&T (NSITT) Dr John Prince said Chief Justice Ivor Archie was among three leaders who requested that work be done speedily to establish the proposed National Statistical Institute of T&T to replace the Central Statistical Office.
Prince said that during Friday’s launch of the task force at the Eric Williams Financial Complex, Port-of-Spain. He said the other requests were from Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and chief secretary of the Tobago House of Assembly Orville London.
Prince said he received a telephone call from Chief Justice Ivor Archie from Nigeria, urging him to do all he can to set up the body to replace the Central Statistical Office quickly.
He said the first to make the demand on him was Prime Minister Rowley, who via a text message to him said: “Make it quick” which was followed “two days later (when) I got a call from the Chief Justice (who) said ‘John I am calling you from Nigeria, please make that task force do its work very, very quickly because we need reliable data.”
Prince said Archie told him “We make judgments without reliable data and I was involved in one.” Prince said Archie told him during the telephone conversation that he (Archie) was an engineer before becoming a judge and “and as an engineer we depend on reliable data. He say ‘please make it quick.’”
Prince said on Thursday he met with London in Tobago and he was also asked by him to “make it quick.” Prince said the first to ask him to “make it right but make it quick” was the Planning and Development Minister Camille Robinson-Regis.
He said to her yesterday: “This task force is ready, ready to do it. We are going to get it right and we are going to get it quick.”
Robinson-Regis said the NSITT was expected to come on stream in January. She said the major issue was for the required legislation to be brought to parliament for approval.
Members of the task force were presented with their letters of appointment by Planning and Development Minister Camille Robinson-Regis.