Institute succeeds in getting UPR Planning School to access data to maintain accreditation

Press Release

The results of the fifth edition of the Survey on the Adoption of Broadband Technology in Companies in Puerto Rico are available

76% of businesses make sales or receive payments through online transactions.

76% of businesses make sales or receive payments through online transactions, the main sector in this regard being wholesalers and warehousing businesses, of which 86% carry out transactions through these means. This is based on data published in the fifth edition of the Puerto Rico Business Broadband Technology Adoption Survey (2019); this survey was conducted by the Puerto Rico Statistics Institute (Institute) in collaboration with the non-profit organization Connect Puerto Rico. This product includes statistics related to the availability, access and use of information technologies and broadband Internet in companies in Puerto Rico. The data were obtained through telephone surveys conducted with nearly 800 local companies.

“Having data, such as those provided by this type of survey, helps to know the availability and limitations of access to this technology in the economic sector. In the same way, it allows us to know the indicators on electronic commerce in Puerto Rico,” said Francisco Pesante, Assistant for Statistical Projects at the Institute.

From the 2019 edition of the Survey on the Adoption of Broadband Technology in Companies in Puerto Rico, the following findings are highlighted:

• 93% of the companies surveyed reported using the Internet for their operations.
• 99% of establishments dedicated to the financial and professional services sector reported using the Internet for their operations.
• 87% of establishments reported using broadband Internet to conduct their businesses.
• 77% of the establishments surveyed reported that their bandwidth is adequate to meet their needs.
• 70% of retail establishments reported using social networks such as Facebook or Twitter.
• The main activities of commercial establishments, in which the use of the Internet is involved, are:
  • Communicate with your customers (76%)
  • Billing and collection (73%)
  • Purchases of goods and services (71%)

• 47% of the establishments surveyed are owned by a woman or a woman is one of the owners, if there are co-owners.

The acting executive director of the Institute of Statistics, Dr. Orville M. Disdier said that “At the Institute of Statistics, we are pleased to collaborate in the collection of data that serve as indicators for economic sectors. According to our vision, we work to guarantee Puerto Rico that it has complete, reliable statistics, and quick and universal access.”

Some of the findings of the report are summarized in the visualization accessible through the following link: https://tabsoft.co/32ZXdM3.

For more information about this survey, as well as previous surveys, interested individuals can access: https://cutt.ly/ieue8ZY. To learn about the data sets you can visit: https://cutt.ly/Neue4hy.

To learn more about the Institute of Statistics, you can access the website: www.estadisticas.pr.gov. On social media through Facebook accounts (@statistics.pr), Twitter (@EstadisticasPR) and LinkedIn (Institute of Statistics of Puerto Rico).

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Contacts:

Idia M. Martinez, R-28

787-603-3200

Lourdes Burgos, R-27

787-562-2932

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PRESS RELEASE

February 7, 2018

DR. MARIO MARAZZI-SANTIAGO
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Executive Director of the Institute assures that it is a “dangerous precedent” and guarantees the loss of federal funds the merger of that body into the DDEC

San Juan, PR, February 7, 2018 — After asserting that its provisions are contrary to federal and state public policy aimed at preventing the manipulation of data and statistics, the executive director of the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics (Institute), Dr. Mario Marazzi-Santiago, today expressed his opposition to House Project 1403 (P. de la C. 1403), which proposes the merger of the Institute into the Department of Economic Development and Commerce (DDEC) in order to outsource its functions.

“The provisions on the Institute of Statistics in P. de la C. 1403 are contrary to federal and state public policy aimed at avoiding the manipulation of data and statistics, to benefit the interests of current administrations or private interests with influence. In short, these constitute a dangerous precedent that destroys the credibility of a transparent, effective, objective and complete system of collecting statistical data for the benefit of Puerto Rico,” said Marazzi-Santiago during the presentation of his paper to the Special Commission for the Restructuring and Reorganization of Puerto Rico and the Chamber of Government Commission.

The Executive Director of the Institute anticipated that if the Reorganization Plan is approved and implemented, the Institute will also result in the loss of federal funds in that body. He recalled that on December 18, 2017, the New Government of Puerto Rico Act, No. 122-2017, was approved in order to maximize personal resources to the Executive Branch and the transfer, outsourcing and creation of new and more efficient government structures and agencies. Article 4.02 of that Act provides that “any change to a program or agency under this Act will be rescinded if the change results in the loss of federal funds in a program being used in Puerto Rico.”

He added that, likewise, Article 14 of Reorganization Plan No. 1 provides that any change to a program or agency under this Act “will be rescinded if the change results in the loss of federal funds in a program being used in Puerto Rico.” In the case of the Institute, the proposed consolidation with the DDEC and the subsequent outsourcing guarantee Puerto Rico's non-compliance with current agreements with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), under the National Violent Death Registration System, a federal competitive grant that the Institute won recently, said Dr. Marazzi-Santiago.

“We have a duty to alert this honorable Commission to take corrective action and amend P. de la C. 1403 accordingly. Specifically, in accordance with Article 4.02 of Law No. 122-2017, P. de la C. 1403 must be amended by deleting the entire chapter dedicated to the Institute of Statistics of Puerto Rico,” said Dr. Marazzi-Santiago.

Dr. Marazzi-Santiago took advantage of his participation to propose three changes through which greater independence could effectively be achieved for the Institute, unlike the ill-advised measures contained in P. de la C. 1403. The following are the alternatives presented in his paper:

1. The Institute's Board has 1 member who is a government official. This may limit the Institute's independence. To address this detail, Act No. 209 can be amended so that no member of the Institute's Board of Directors is a government official. This ensures the Institute's ability to operate independently. They would all be private citizens, with no connection to current or previous political administrations, nominated on the basis of their personal and professional integrity and objectivity, and their educational preparation and demonstrated competence in the use of statistics, and will work on behalf of the users of the data, and not of other interests.
2. Exempt the Institute from administrative laws that hinder its ability to operate regardless of political influences and that increase bureaucracy, without implying that the Institute in any way abandon the healthy public administration policies that have distinguished its operations since its inception. This includes Laws 66- 2014, 3-2017, 8-2017 and 26-2017. The Institute must be able to appoint the experts it deems appropriate to complete its highly technical tasks and to manage its allocated budget without political influence.
3. Provide for all or some of the candidates for the Institute's Board to be proposed by professional and industry associations that represent these fields of expertise rather than government officials.

On the other hand, with regard to the Institute's financial self-sustainability, Dr. Marazzi-Santiago assured that a bill (P. del S. 12) already exists before the Legislative Assembly that proposes amendments to the Institute's Enabling Act and that would empower it and would allow it to obtain a greater portion of its income from sources outside the Government of Puerto Rico, so it is unnecessary to outsource the statistics system to achieve these purposes.

The Executive Director of the Institute also highlighted that there is broad and open opposition both at the local and federal levels to the provisions related to the Institute in Reorganization Plan No. 1 and in P. de la C. 1403, including the American Statistical Association, the largest professional association of statisticians in the world, as well as 15 Democratic and Republican congressmen, the Puerto Rico Private Sector Coalition, the Puerto Rico Transparency Network and about 2,000 people who formalized in just over a week your position through a cyber request on the portal change.org.

“As a result of the above-mentioned operational and fiscal independence, and of the sound public resource management policies adopted by the Institute since its inception, the Institute is one of very few governmental entities in Puerto Rico characterized by its efficiency and agility, by never having incurred a budget deficit, and by making the best possible use of the budgetary allocations it receives. In other words, the Institute is not part of the problem of bureaucracy, redundancy and inefficiency that Act No. 122-2017 and P. de la C. 1403 intend to address. On the contrary, the Institute is a public entity that serves as a model of public administration,” concluded Dr. Marazzi-Santiago.

The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute is an autonomous governmental entity responsible for coordinating the Government's statistical production service to ensure that the data collection and statistics systems, on which public policies are based, are complete, reliable, and have quick and universal access. The IEPR has in its inventory, accessible through www.estadisticas.pr.gov, about 300 statistical products. In addition, it is a custodian and provides access to over 100 data sets or “data sets” through www.data.pr.gov and to over 40 tables and more than 6 thousand indicators through: www.indicadores.pr.

In addition, as the leading entity of Puerto Rico's SDC, the IEPR manages the SDC portal, which contains the main statistical reports and publications of the U.S. Census Bureau on Puerto Rico, specifically those that are most in demand, such as annual population estimates; the Puerto Rico Community Survey and official statistics on Puerto Rico's decennial population and housing censuses, among others. The Puerto Rico SDC portal can be accessed through: https://censo.estadisticas.pr/.

For more information you can visit our website:www.estadisticas.pr.gov. In addition, you can follow us on social networks through Facebook (estadisticas.pr), Twitter (@EstadisticasPR) and LinkedIn (Institute of Statistics of Puerto Rico) accounts.

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Press Contact: Sandra Morales Blanes/787-688-0401

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