Think Tank? Well, No; may be More Tank than Think!

Kwame Owino  argues in a recent Op-Ed in the Daily Nation that he doesn't think "issuing economic forecast is good and honest professional practice". By this measure, Mr. Owino fails his own test when he goes a head and issues a "forecast" to Business Daily, a sister publication of the Daily Nation.
Mr. Owino is the Chief Executive Officer of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA-Kenya), a Nairobi-based Public Policy Think Tank. That is more the reason why (a) his views on the essense economic forecasting and why he and his colleagues at the Think Tank are reluctant to be forthcoming with their projections (b) his eventual commiting to a forecast represent a careless thought process.
I agree with Mr. Owino that economic forecasting is not fortune-telling. But that is all I agree about insofar as his core thesis in the Daily Nation piece is concerned.Any forecast, e.g. the IMF's World Economic Outlook (WEO), is based on a model. The assumptions of such model are clearly specificed and such models are usually subjected to senstivity tests to ensure that they remain credible.
In the case of WEO, the projections are done twice a year - April and Actober; the reason for that is that the assumptions are reviewed and validated. Therefore these models are not an act of magic, and nobody presents them as such.
Closer home, any serious policy is based on the rigour of macro models. I am not sure whether Mr. Owino knows that the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) deploys a macro model to enable a forecast. The so-called Taylor-rule, which is the basis for coming up with the policy rate (the Central Bank Rate), necessiates that the CBK projects both economic growth and inflation.
Indeed the Taylo-rule is based on the gap between actual GDP growth and potential growth, and actual inflation and the target. I actually wonder whether at IEA-Kenya, there is an understanding that monetary policy is not about actual inflation but inflation expectations - which means that policy is foreward looking and thus necessiates some forecasting.
Even fiscal policy is based on some projection - we may have a discussion as to whether we agree on the forecast, but there has to be one. If at all Mr. Owino knows that the KIPPRA-Treasury macro model is a useful tool is not known to me; I however have my doubts whether if he is aware of such model, he knows the underlying mechanics.
On this account alone, I would have my doubts on the ability to rigorously critique any outlook based on some well thought out model. If  such abililty was evident, then statements like "if an individual firm had a model or one professional capable of knowing about the performance of Kenya’s economy for three years in advance, that knowledge would be so valuable for profit generation that it would not be provided casually" will have no room in the argument.
Surely Mr. Owino should know that the further the period from the time of projection, the higher the likelihood of the outlook departing from the actual outcome. That is why, the IMF - while giving a five year outlook  in the WEO is reviewed twice a year.
Then there is the "small" matter of intellectual honesty. The true measure of such honesty is the consistency in the thought process. Mr. Owino makes one interesting assertion that :

"For instance, the IEA-Kenya has, in the last four days, received nearly a half-dozen requests for a formal declaration of interest rates, GDP growth rates and the exchange rate for Kenya and regional countries for 2015, from media houses and other professionals. Most of these very polite and diligent enquirers were surprised that while we think we are very capable and understand selected countries and Kenya very well, we do not think that issuing economic forecasts is good and honest professional practice."

I think that the capability that Mr. Owino is talking about is all in his mind. As an economist, I will simply ask him one question if he has to demonstrate such capacity: where is the model?

But then, Mr. Owino is not done. He asserts thus:

"What the gush of business and economic forecasts tells you is that professional economists and business advisors have forgotten the three golden words that are the mark of wisdom: I don't know."

So where does Mr. Owino get the number 4% - 5% outlook that he gives the Business Daily as his forecast for 2015 if his answer to any querry on economic forecast is: "I don't know"?

I think I know where; it is through guess work! And Mr. Owino signs off the Daily Nation  Op-Ed by the bold indication that he is the CEO of the IEA-Kenya, a Think Tank!
Such comedy makes me agree with Prof. Jagdish Bhagwati - one of my favourite economists - when he characterises such entities as being more about Tank than Think.