CPD vents scepticism about quality of national data

FE Report | Published: June 02, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00

The Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) said Bangladesh's data production on important indicators, including GDP calculation, is now widely criticised out of scepticism about its authenticity.
GDP (gross domestic product) growth does not reflect the reality and data of resource mobilisation by the National Board of Revenue (NBR) do not match with that of the finance division, it categorically noted.
The policy think tank's observations came at a media briefing arranged Monday to release a report styled 'State of the Bangladesh Economy in FY2015 and the Closure of Sixth Five Year Plan'.
Executive Director of the CPD Prof Mustafizur Rahman conducted the briefing at the CIRDAP auditorium in the city.
The organisation listed five key areas where reform ought to be undertaken.
It said Bangladesh now needs to set up an independent commission to ensure quality of data, which are used nationally and internationally to assess the ground situation in the country.
Similar commissions for local government financing, public expenditure, financial sector and agriculture prices should also be instituted for maintaining transparency, accountability and good governance.
"An independent statistical commission is to validate the macroeconomic correlates," it said about the vital corrective measure.
CPD additional director Khondaker Golam Moazzem said data-production system should be transparent as the GDP growth rate for the outgoing fiscal year does not match with the forecasts made by local and international organisations.
He said Bangladesh's economy had not expanded so hugely during the first half of the current fiscal that it could compensate for the losses incurred in the third quarter (January to March) that witnessed one of the worst political troubles.
 The think tank called upon the government to formulate separate law to deal with black money and benami (bought in other's name) property, within and outside the country.
The CPD made the proposal after it found out that fiscal measures on ad-hoc basis for the whitening of black money had failed to bring undisclosed money and benami property back into the mainstream economy.
"It is now important to formulate a predictable legal framework where tax rate should be above the marginal rate," Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya, distinguished fellow of the CPD, said at the programme.
"This kind of law is not rare in the world," the economist added to underpin his point.
Neighbouring India enacted a Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act in 1988, which has been amended this year, to put an end to such transactions, and to empower the government to recover such property.
Towfiqul Islam Khan, a senior research fellow at the policy outfit, presented the keynote on the topic.
The CPD distinguished fellow, Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya, underscored that the question is whether Bangladesh economy can reach its potential growth targets through enabling policies and congenial political environment in the years to come before 2021.
Observing the trends of public expenditure in recent budgets, he cautioned that the quality of fiscal planning had deteriorated over the last four years with the fiscal gap ever increasing.
In his keynote presentation, Mr Towfiqul Islam Khan introduced the IRBD report that mainly looked at macroeconomic management in FY2015 and outlook for FY2016, recent dynamics of rice price in Bangladesh, assessment of progress of fast-track projects and analysis of implementation of the sixth five-year plan (SFYP).
He mentioned that the Bangladesh economy was experiencing a number of macroeconomic advantages like lower inflation, declining interest rates, stable exchange rates, manageable fiscal deficit, positive balance-of-payments situation, augmented foreign- exchange reserves and low level of global commodity prices including that of oil.
Acceleration in private investment remained an illusive goal while NBR's tax-revenue-collection growth was below target despite having import duty and supplementary duty collections on track.
The fiscal planning for FY2016 will require significant midterm corrections to achieve a realistic revenue target, noted Mr Khan.
    jasimharoon@yahoo.com