Monitoring key to proper budget execution:analysts
Every budget includes many good initiatives but in reality these remain unimplemented at the year’s end due to a lack of action plans and proper monitoring, analysts said yesterday.
The government should attach a clear action plan on how every initiative should be implemented and who will benefit and provide an analysis following the implementation, they said.
Atiur Rahman, chairman of Unnayan Shamannay, said the government took up many good initiatives in the current budget. “Now implementation of the initiatives is the challenge,” he added.
Addressing a citizens’ dialogue on “Current budget and inclusive development” at the research organisation in Dhaka, Rahman said people talk about a budget during its proposal but none was questioned about its implementation afterwards.
He recommended that the government focus on qualitative implementation of the budget. M Abu Eusuf, former chairman of development studies department of the University of Dhaka, said many “dream” projects got “block allocations” in every budget.
“However, most of the allocation remains unused because of a lack of action plan,” he said.
Eusuf cited a Tk 100 crore allocation for women entrepreneurs kept in the previous budget, saying that very little of it was used during the year.
In the current budget, the government has allotted funds for some new initiatives, including one for start-ups. “It sounds good but it has not been properly mentioned how it would be implemented,” he said.
The finance minister should present a quarterly budget implementation report abiding by the Public Money and Budget Management Act 2009, added Eusuf, who is also the director of the Centre on Budget and Policy under the university.
“It should be followed rigorously,” he said.
Nazneen Ahmed, senior research fellow at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, said the government has been providing a “banal” gender budget every year.
There is no action plan in the budget on what will specifically be done for women and how, she said. “So it leads to only waste of money and we fail to get the expected results.”
Ananya Raihan, CEO of development organisation iSocial, said a lack of jobs, failure to manage public finance and corruption were the three major alarming sides of the Bangladesh economy.
The government has announced that it will create one crore jobs, not how it will be done, he said.
Nasiruddin Ahmed, a former chairman of the National Board of Revenue, said the revenue collection target was a challenge due to a lack of capability of the revenue collector.
“The NBR should have more manpower and necessary equipment to achieve the targeted revenue,” he said.
Toufic Ahmad Choudhury, former director general of the Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management, said a higher interest rate was not investment-friendly for the country so the government was trying to reduce it.
But the higher interest rate has not resulted from a higher cost of funds or management costs but for a high amount of default loans, he said.
According to Bangladesh Bank data, default loans soared to Tk 110,874 crore as of March this year, the highest ever for the country. “So please try to reduce default loans to reduce the interest rate,” said Choudhury.
Choudhury said the government plans to punish willful loan defaulters. “But how will willful defaulters be determined? If it is determined politically, then it would not yield expected results.”
He recommended opening a loan workout department in every bank which will assess reasons for defaulting and report to the central bank. “The department is in practice worldwide,” he added.
Atiur Rahman, also a former governor of Bangladesh Bank, said the banking sector is unstable now, something the finance minister acknowledged and for which some reforms measures have been taken in the budget. “This is a good sign,” he said.
“The financial sector is the heart of the economy which has been suffering from ups and downs of pressure in recent times. So time has come to detect the problems properly and cure it,” he added.
SM Zulfiqar Ali, senior research fellow at the BIDS; Jamshed uz Zaman, former executive director of Bangladesh Bank; Mousumi Islam, managing director of Promixco, and KAM Morshed, director of the Advocacy for Social Change of Brac, also spoke.
