Bureaucrats not smart enough to execute budget on time

Bureaucrats, despite being well trained and educated, are not smart enough to implement the budget in a timely manner, for which this perennial difficulty may persist, Planning Minister MA Mannan said yesterday.

The ministry alone cannot take down this bureaucratic barrier as the solution lies in inter-ministerial coordination.

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Besides, the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED) is not at its required proficiency.

“So, we have to carry out more reforms in the bureaucracy,” he added.

Mannan was addressing a webinar on “Budget and Business Outlook of Bangladesh During 2021-22: Strategic Priorities”, organised by the American Chamber of Commerce in Bangladesh (AmCham).

The government needs to get 70 per cent of the population vaccinated as soon as possible for a V-shaped economic recovery from the Covid-19 fallout, said Atiur Rahman, a former governor of Bangladesh Bank.

Getting such a large number of people their jabs fast is important to bring back confidence among businesspeople.

“Forget the implementation and deficit issues in the budget, we need vaccination for the people and to take more care of partnerships between the government and private sector to turn around and to fight back against the disaster,” Rahman said.

Vaccination has not been prioritised in the proposed national budget for fiscal 2021-22 and now there is no alternative to vaccination.

“The social safety net allocation will not serve the purpose for the new poor stemming from the Covid-19 fallouts,” he added.

The former central bank governor also said a budget deficit of 6.2 per cent and 40 per cent loan-GDP ratio was okay for the economy and such issues would not affect the budget’s implementation.

However, the budget is growth oriented as allocation has increased for the power, transport and communication sectors, which will generate growth in the economy.

Higher allocations in the mega projects will fuel the economy and create employment, he said, adding that the tax cuts indicate that the budget is business friendly.

“The budget will spur the growth of startups and e-commerce,” Rahman said while presenting a keynote paper.

Both Mannan and Ahsan H Mansur, executive director of the Policy Research Institute (PRI) echoed Rahman’s views.

“We need to complete the vaccination of our people by June next year. But the finance minister did not say anything clearly about such a pace of vaccination in his budget proposal,” Mansur said.

He also questioned the rationale behind keeping the primary, high and girls’ schools shut in villages where there were no cases of Covid-19 infections.

A good number of students will drop out from schools due to the long shutdown of educational institutions, he said.

The 2 per cent allocation for education is not adequate and it should be at least 4 per cent of the GDP to ensure quality education in the country.

For job creation, the allocation for the cottage, micro, small and medium enterprises (CMSMEs) needs to be increased, the former economist of International Monetary Fund added.

He suggested providing the CMSMEs a grant as their financial strength was poor.

The revenue target proposed for the next fiscal year might not be achieved because of the current business trend, Mansur said.

While moderating the discussion, AmCham President Syed Ershad Ahmed said by now, a few thousand people had lost their jobs and it seems that there were chances that more people would become jobless and lose their incomes within the next few months.

Moreover, thousands of fresh university graduates are waiting to enter the job market.

“The pandemic is still far from over and so, we can’t find any reason to ignore it,” Ahmed said.

The proposed budget comes at a time when all educational institutions had remained shut for nearly one and a half years, he pointed out.

There is a concern over the digital divide depriving a large number of children of education, which has been leading to child marriage, school dropouts and child labour, the AmCham chief said.

“But the budget does not mention any measure to recover the learning loss and bring back students to schools, colleges and universities. Already a big gap between poor and rich people exists and it could widen further. We apprehend that this may result in an unbalanced society,” he added.

Aftab ul Islam, a Bangladesh Bank director, said now was the time for the central bank to give an expansionary monetary policy for the country with a view to help the economy recover from the Covid-19 fallout.

Naser Ezaz Bijoy, CEO of Standard Chartered Bank Bangladesh, said the stimulus would work for the economy.

Black money will create problems for a compliant financial system. Overall budget has been accepted but there is room for further review, he added.