Paradigm shift in ADP planning

The interim government has initiated a radical shift in annual development plan (ADP) implementation. The current five-year plan that forms the basis of ADPs has been suspended and the new focus is now on skill development of country's human resources, which is a major shift from several previous ADPs that had prioritised infrastructure development. To term the plans radical would be an understatement. For instance, with a view to quicker decision-making and implementation, the current administration has empowered individual ministries to approve projects. It has become abundantly clear that the top-down decision-making approach whereby projects were undertaken whimsically, while wholly or partially disregarding a need-based approach had resulted in very poor ADP implementation. This had been a major bone of contention with bilateral and multilateral foreign development partners who committed billions of dollars in grants and loans only to see partial implementation. Since there was hardly any need felt at the top for either transparency or accountability, it is interesting to note that a taskforce has been set up to deliver direction of the economy and submit a report within the next three months so as to give current policymakers a bird's eye view about the state of the economy.

It is good to know that finally, the dire needs of the massively unemployed educated youth are being addressed. The economy had become overly dependent on foreign workers and since the youth were graduating from a broken education system that failed to equip young people with requisite technical knowhow or with knowledge that industry needed, they found no employment. No exact figure exists on how many foreign workers are employed in Bangladesh, but it is more than a million people. They don't pay taxes here and this is why the human resource development has been prioritised to bring young people up to speed on various emerging opportunities like information technology. There is also realisation that the bulk of our expatriate workers are employed in the unskilled category. Hence, remittance value remains low which could be reversed if more technical hands could go abroad to work and whose pay would be many times more than that of unskilled workers. A qualitative improvement is needed and this is very much possible through vocational and IT-education development.

Previous government had opted to go for some projects which had bypassed the planning commission. This was done deliberately to favour select companies that opened the door wide for graft on epic proportions. Irregularities happened at the sole discretion of the former prime minister. As far as a number of mega projects are concerned, the country has ended up with a huge foreign debt, the servicing of which has become a burden the economy can ill-afford. These grandiose projects were taken to showcase the "development" made possible by the erstwhile government which were not based on any economic need but to serve the hubris of one person.

The current administration is having to repair the damage done over the last 15 years. It had become modus operandi that mega-projects mean mega-corruption. One instance of such graft can be cited here. The former roads and highways minister had claimed that it would require one year and Tk 1.5 billion to repair the damage caused by miscreants to two metro rail stations. One of the vandalised station at Kazipara was reopened on Friday last. The repair of the station was completed at a paltry amount of Tk 2.0 million under the new metro rail administration. Had the previous administration remained in power, a substantial amount would have ended up lining the pockets of corrupt politicians and contracting company. Let these be lessons learnt for the new administration. Hopefully, the mistakes of past regimes will not be allowed in the present. Transparency and accountability must become the guiding principles of today's political and economic decisions.