Affiliations: The National ICT Association of Malaysia (PIKOM),
Malaysia. Tel.: +6 03 79552922; Fax: +6 03 79552923; E-mail:
[email protected]
Abstract: This paper addresses two ethical issues; one pertaining to
professional competence and the other to statistical integrity. Both issues
arose when attempts were made to augment the information communications
technology (ICT) penetration rates compiled in the Malaysian Population and
Housing Census 2000 and the Household Basic Amenities Survey 2004 at the lowest
administrative or "Mukim" level using small area estimation procedures. The
paper posits that despite wide publicity on ICT policy strategies and
programmes and the evolution of the knowledge based economy, the problem of
inadequate and scanty data in Malaysia was due to a lack of professional
competence. The paper views professional competence not only from the data
producer perspective but also from the users' perspectives, who expect the
statistical community to play a proactive role in exploring the emerging areas
of public policy interest, as opposed to the current directive based approach.
The paper discusses statistical integrity not only from the usual perspectives
of data, professionalism, competence, process and quality control, but also
from the perspective of statistical governance in the context of overall
national governance. The latter aspect seems to be seldom addressed in the
literature.
Keywords: ICT data inadequacy, policy imperatives, professional competence, statistical integrity, small area estimation, mixture of statistical techniques, statistical governance, user acceptance