One of the strange practices in annual development planning (ADP) is the apparent lack of foresight that goes into overseeing whether it can or cannot be implemented by existing ministries, departments and agencies. There is great enthusiasm in planning thousands of projects, especially those that require massive financial outlays in procurement of goods and materials required for building or construction. The priority areas appear to be geared towards all things that involve purchase and contractors.
Then come other issues like actually implementing the projects. This year, however, was a little different because of the current state of affairs with finances. This is a year of discontent for policymakers for a myriad of reasons. Revenue generation is down, investment by private sector is very low, employment generation has remained on the backburner for many years as the economy has experienced the phenomenon of "jobless growth", remittances are down, as are exports. Given the numerous challenges facing the economy, the honourable prime minister (PM) had also hinted that the annual development plan reflects this and unnecessary projects be trimmed as far as possible from the ADP.
Bangladesh should have by now learnt some lessons from the experience of dismal implementation rate from past ADP implementation, especially in the past three years. What is the point of making massive plans where the implementation remains less than 50 per cent? Indeed, going by a report published recently in this newspaper, it becomes evident that the rate of ADP implementation was 49.32 per cent in FY2020, 49.39 per cent in FY21 and 49.26 per cent in FY24. What the data tell us is that the larger ministries consistently have lagged behind in development spending, and during the first six months of the current financial year, implementation remains lowest out of three years mentioned.
Then the question arises again as to why planning is done in a manner where state agencies fail to implement even half the programmes undertaken? What is the rationale behind such futile exercises? It is not as if the government is unaware of the problems it faces in terms of the capacity of its implementing bodies, so why keep making financial commitments to unnecessary programmes? The government's own implementing agency IMED (Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division) has come up with these disturbing data. "In the first 10 months, the government spent Tk 1.25 trillion, or 49.26 per cent of its allocated Tk 2.54 trillion RADP budget. The ADP execution rate up to February (July-February) this year was the lowest in 14 years."
An analysis by this newspaper has found that some of the major ministries and agencies include the healthcare division, shipping ministry, Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and the Ministry of Housing and Public Works have all underperformed in executing the revised ADP (RADP) the July-April period of the current RADP. Something needs to change here. It is IMED's assessment that these departments / agencies continue to fall short of meeting their projection targets and that is dragging down the rate of annual ADP implementation. The visible lack of progress in the capacity of the planning commission despite constant prodding by both the PM and the ECNEC continue to fall on deaf ears. This is alarming. A lack of accountability remains the major problem and it is time to think about making cost-benefit analysis mandatory in national planning. Planners need to answer for their failure to implement since the PM's directives are being ignored with no concern about consequence.
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