STATISTICS ACT
Arrangement of Sections
Section
PART I
PRELIMINARY PROVISIONS
1. Short title
2. Interpretation
3. Principles relating to official statistics
4. Co-ordination and co-operation with statistical agencies and users
PART II
ZAMBIA STATISTICS AGENCY
5. Establishment of the Zambia Statistics Agency
6. Seal of Agency
7. Functions of Agency
8. Board of Agency
9. Functions of Board
10. Delegation of functions
11. Statistician-General
12. Secretary and other staff of Agency
13. Oath
PART III
NATIONAL STATISTICAL SYSTEM AND STATISTICS
14. Establishment of National Statistical System
15. Functions of National Statistical System
16. Administration of National Statistical System
17. Code of practice
18. Commencement and finalisation of statistical collection
19. Agreement on statistical information and data
20. Standardisation
21. Designation of statistics as official statistics
22. Census and survey
23. Statistics
24. Sampling
25. Procedure for collecting and processing of statistical data
26. Access to administrative data and metadata
27. Statistics releases
28. National plan for development of statistics
PART IV
GENERAL PROVISIONS
29. Entry and inspection of premises
30. Restrictions on disclosure of information
31. Misuse of statistical data
32. Power to obtain particulars
33. Service of document
34. Directives for non-compliance
35. Offences by principal officer of body corporate or unincorporate body
36. General offences
37. General penalty
38. Administrative penalty
39. Regulations
40. Repeal of Cap. 127 and Cap. 229
41. Savings and transitional provisions
AN ACT
to establish an integrated National Statistical System; provide for mechanisms for co-ordination, collection, management and dissemination of statistics; promote the use of statistical data and information at individual, institutional, national and international levels; re-constitute the Central Statistical Office as the Zambia Statistics Agency and define its functions; establish the Board of the Zambia Statistics Agency and define its functions; provide for the production and compilation of official statistics in a transparent and impartial manner; ensure the protection of personal data collected for statistical compilation purposes; build sustainable capacity for the production and use of statistical data and information for planning purposes; ensure co-ordination among statistical agencies; give effect to the United Nations Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics and Principles of the African Charter on Statistics; repeal the Census and Statistics Act 1955 and the Agricultural Statistics Act 1964; and to provide for matters connected with, or incidental to, the foregoing.
[13th September, 2019]
Act 13 of 2018.
SI 60 of 2019.
PART I
PRELIMINARY PROVISIONS
This Act may be cited as the Statistics Act.
In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires—
"Agency" means the Zambia Statistics Agency established under section 5;
"authorised officer" means any person—
(a) who is an officer of the Agency and designated as an authorised officer by the Statistician-General; or
(b) appointed by the Statistician-General to perform work on behalf of the National Statistical System;
"Board" means the Board of the Agency constituted under section 8;
"business" has the meaning assigned to the word in the Registration of Business Names Act, 2011;
"census" means the collection, compilation, evaluation and dissemination of basic data pertaining to the demographic, economic, financial,social,agricultural, industrial and environmental sectors and other sectors through a complete enumeration of units in a well-defined territory at a specified time;
"Chairperson" means the person appointed as Chairperson of the Board under section 8;
"committee" means a committee of the Board;
"data" means collection of facts such as values or measurements, which can be numbers, words, observations or description of a thing;
"dissemination" means the direct or indirect publication, sale or provision of official or other statistics, spatial data or related documentation in any form;
"document" includes a device by means of which information is recorded or stored;
"domain" means a sub-group of the population for which a separate estimate is calculated or an analysis is performed;
"Fund" means the National Statistics Development Fund established in accordance with Part II of the First Schedule;
"higher education institution" has the meaning assigned to the words in the Higher Education Act, 2013;
"household" means a person or group of persons who may or may not be related by blood but normally live together, make common provisions for living and only have one person whom they all regard as head of the household;
"member" means a member of the Board;
"metadata" means the range of information, generally textual, that fosters understanding of the context in which statistical data has been collected, processed and analysed with the objective of creating statistical information;
"micro data" means data on the characteristics of units of a population, such as individuals, households or establishments collected by a census, survey or experiment and includes a single business entity;
"National Statistical System" means the National Statistical System established under section 14;
"official statistics" means statistics describing, on a representative basis, the economic, demographic, social or environmental phenomena of the Republic in the statistical work programmes of statistical agencies;
"organisation" means any non-governmental or non-profit organisation, voluntary association or other organisation, other than a business, household or State organ;
"private body" means an organisation, company, partnership, political party, proprietorship, or other institution which is not a public body and includes research institution, higher education institution, development partners or any other user;
"public body" has the meaning assigned to the words in the Public Finance Management Act, 2018;
"respondent" means an individual, household State organ, business or organisation, in respect of whose activities, affairs or any information is sought or provided for the purposes of this Act;
"return" means a book, document, form, card, tape, disc or storage media on which the information required is entered or recorded or is required to be entered or recorded for statistical purposes;
"repealed Act" means the Census and Statistics Act, 1955;
"sampling" means a statistical procedure for selecting a subset of units from within a population of interest for purposes of estimating the characteristics of the whole population;
"sample survey" means the collection, compilation, evaluation and dissemination of basic data pertaining to the economic, social, environmental or demographic sectors through a method of selecting representative portions from the total of the units in the survey;
"Secretary" means the person appointed as Secretary of the Agency under section 12;
"sector" means a vertical division of Government activity that relates to a given subject area or public need, usually corresponding to line ministries, with separate and well defined areas of concern, mandate and budget;
"statistics" means any official or unofficial aggregated numerical information relating to demographic, economic, financial, environmental, social or other matters, available in digital or other applicable format, collected at national, regional or local level, which is compiled and analysed according to relevant scientific and statistical methodologies, and which is connected with, or incidental to, any census or survey of all or any of the matters specified in the Third Schedule, and includes information derived from records of administration kept by statistical agencies;
"statistical agency" means a public body that has the power to collect, compile or disseminate statistics under a written law including—
(a) the Zambia Revenue Authority Act;
(b) the Bank of Zambia Act;
(c) the Banking and Financial Services Act, 2017;
(d) the Zambia Wildlife Act, 2015;
(e) the Water Supply and Sanitation Act, 1997;
(f) the Lands Act;
(g) the Mines and Minerals Development Act, 2015;
(h) the Local Government Act, 2019;
(i) the Citizens Economic Empowerment Act, 2006;
(j) the Zambia Development Agency Act, 2006;
(k) the Tourism and Hospitality Act, 2015;
(l) the Higher Education Act, 2013;
(m) the Electoral Process Act, 2016;
(n) the Competition and Consumer Protection Act, 2010;
(o) the Information and Communication Technologies Act, 2009; and
(p) any other written law prescribed by the Minister for the purposes of this Act;
"statistical collection" means the process of—
(a) conducting a census, survey or a sample survey;
(b) collating administrative documents, records or data for statistical purposes;
(c) storage of information for the collection, production and dissemination of official statistics, but excludes the collection, production and dissemination of statistical information or data by a person strictly for private use;
(d) undertaking a census; or
(e) undertaking a collection of spatial data for statistical purposes;
"Statistician" means a statistics professional or researcher involved in the collection, production, analysis and dissemination of statistical data within the National Statistical System;
"Statistician-General" means the person appointed as Statistician-General under section 11;
"spatial data" means information that identifies the geographic location and characteristics of natural or constructed features and boundaries on the earth, derived from remote sensing, global positioning systems, geographic information systems, cartographic techniques, geo-coded statistical information, computer aided designs, ground stations or other surveying techniques and includes geo-spatial data;
"survey" means a statistical undertaking by which information is collected from all persons in a field of enquiry;
"United Nations Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics" means the United Nations Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics adopted by the United Nations Statistical Commission in April, 1994;
"user" in relation to statistics includes a public body, private body, researcher, research institution, higher education institution, international or regional organisation or any other user; and
"Vice-Chairperson" means the person elected Vice-Chairperson of the Board in section 8.
3. Principles relating to official statistics
(1) The principles of official statistics enshrined in the United Nations Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics and the African Charter on Statistics apply for the purposes of this Act.
(2) In this section, "African Charter on Statistics" means the African Charter on Statistics adopted by the African Union on 4th February, 2009, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
4. Co-ordination and co-operation with statistical agencies and users
(1) The Agency shall liaise, co-ordinate and co-operate with relevant statistical agencies and users for the purposes of this Act and may—
(a) have joint programmes, plans, strategies and policies, taking into account the national policies of the Government; and
(b) enter into memoranda of understanding as instruments of co-operation.
(2) The Agency shall, for purposes of sub-section (1), develop working relationship among statistical agencies and users for the—
(a) collection, production, analysis and dissemination of statistics; or
(b) capture, management, maintenance, integration, distribution and use of spatial data.
(3) The Agency shall collaborate with statistical agencies in ensuring compliance with this Act.
(4) The Agency shall put in place necessary co-ordination mechanisms, at local, national, regional and international levels, to enable the overall co-ordination of the statistical function within the National Statistical System.
PART II
ZAMBIA STATISTICS AGENCY
5. Establishment of the Zambia Statistics Agency
(1) There is established the Zambia Statistics Agency which is a body corporate with perpetual succession and a common seal, capable of suing and being sued in its corporate name and with power, subject to this Act, to do all acts and things that a body corporate may by law do or perform.
(2) The First Schedule applies to the Agency.
(1) The seal of the Agency shall be a device that may be determined by the Agency and shall be kept by the Statistician-General.
(2) The affixing of the seal shall be authenticated by the Chairperson or the Vice-Chairperson and the Statistician-General or any other person authorised in that behalf by a resolution of the Board.
(3) A contract or instrument which, if entered into or executed by a person, not being a body corporate, is not required to be under seal, may be entered into or executed without seal on behalf of the Agency by the Statistician-General or any other person generally or specifically authorised by the Board in that behalf.
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