It seems that being accurate with figures and statistics is beyond us. This has been a major factor in complicating our problems and preventing us from producing carefully thoughtout plans. We see no difference between a figure of 10,000 and 10 million. It is thus not surprising to see that everything we do, in most cases, leads to undesirable results.
Take, for example, the confusion that continues to surround the number of Saudi students attending class in each new academic year. At one time we read that are four million students of both sexes; then we read that there are 3.5 million students and — surprise, surprise — another source gives the number of those in school as 4.5 million.
Figures on road accidents are no better. We were told the number of people killed in road accidents in a given year was 3,500. But another statistic puts the number at 3,000 while a third says 2,500. There is never a reliable figure.
It is indeed a disaster that even today we don’t know the Kingdom’s population figure. Anyone in doubt can consult a government authority and ask for an accurate figure. Two authorities will give two different figures.
As if such blatant negligence and ignorance were not enough, we tend to deny whatever we don’t want to be associated with, preferring to distance ourselves from certain realities which we insist are alien to our society. It is a misplaced feeling of shame and fear of scandal that prevents us from confronting these issues directly in a serious and rational manner.
The latest incident in this ongoing confusion was the Ministry of Labor’s announcement regarding the country’s unemployment figures. The announcement was timed as good news, coming in the last 10 days of Ramadan. It was meant to give the impression that everything was just fine and that everything to the contrary published about unemployment is no more than a wicked conspiracy by a bunch of liars which was publicized by some irresponsible newspapers.
The ministry put the unemployment rate at 9.66 percent. This is a strange figure. What we demand from the ministry is that it tell us what mechanism and methods it applied in order to arrive at this “very accurate” figure, which is a far cry from the high rate of unemployment known to everyone in the country.
