KUWAIT CITY, Sept 22: The Cabinet’s Economic Committee this week discussed the draft law for merging the Central Statistics Bureau with the Public Authority for Civil Information as part of the efforts to streamline the government structure and rationalize spending, reports Al-Qabas daily. This comes in confirmation of a report published by the daily in January 2021. Senior-level sources had affirmed that the committee’s decision ended with a recommendation to complete the merger procedures, which is in its final stages.

They explained that this study was based on the convergence of competencies between the Central Statistics Bureau with PACI on one hand, and the unification of official figures and government statistics on the other. The presence of more than one party to issue official statistics caused some inaccurate or unsynchronized figures due to which the merger would be a radical solution. The merger of the two bodies will happen through a decree, because the Central Statistics Bureau was established by decree. The merger will not affect the organizational structure of the employees.

However, there is a possibility that positions of the undersecretary and assistant undersecretaries in the merged entity will be abolished because it will fall under the umbrella of PACI. This will reduce the budget assigned to the Central Statistics Bureau as it will be limited to the salaries of employees only without other items.