Development works seemingly lose gear as the government agencies executed only 7.5 per cent of the annual development programme (ADP) for the current fiscal year during the July- Sepember period (Q1), showing a nine-year low.
Analysts say, traditionally, budget execution in the initial periods of a fiscal year goes slow in the Bangladesh context notwithstanding criticisms from economists and financial experts, and picks up at the fag-end that compromises quality of works and probity of public-fund spending.
And, again, this happens to be an election year and the budget-implementation jurisdiction splits between two governments. A new government is due to take over in January-halfway through the current financial year.
Officials Monday told the FE writer that the development-project-execution performance in the July-September period the fiscal year (FY) 2023-24 stood out as "worst in nine years despite acceleration efforts".
The worse performance of some leading ministries and divisions, including the Shipping, Science and Technology, and Health ministries and Roads and Highways Division, are the key reasons behind "the bad news," said one official.
The government ministries, divisions and agencies spent Tk 206.09 billion in the July-September period, which accounts for 7.5 per cent of the total Tk 2.74 trillion worth of ADP outlay for this fiscal, Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED) data showed.
This is the lowest ADP-execution rate in last nine years, a senior IMED official told the FE.
He said the lowest project-execution rate was recorded at 3.0 per cent 10 years ago, during the first quarter of FY2014-the time of election turmoil.
In the same period of the subsequent FY2015, the project-execution rate was 10 per cent, the IMED statistics showed.
IMED officials said the government project-executing agencies during the first quarter (Q1) of the current FY2024 implemented 1.05-percent lower than the rate in the same period of last fiscal.
In the July-September period last fiscal, the government agencies spent Tk 218.95 billion or 8.55 per cent of the total Tk 2.56-trillion ADP outlay.
According to the IMED, the ministry of shipping, the ninth-largest ADP-holder, was the worst performer during this past Q1 with only 1.59 per cent of its Tk 99.33-billion allocations spent.
Besides, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the 6th-largest allocation-recipient, executed 3.88 per cent of its total outlay, Health Services Division, the 7th-biggest development budget-holder, implemented only 4.45 per cent, and the Primary and Mass Education ministry, having the 8th-largest budget, implemented 5.16 per cent of its ADP in the period.
Meanwhile, the 12th-highest holder of development budget-the Tourism and Civil Aviation ministry--performed best with its 16.15-percent execution rate while the Railways Ministry 14.87 per cent, the Agriculture Ministry 12.22 per cent and the Local Government Division 10.94 per cent, the IMED data showed.
Asked about the slowdown, a Member at the Planning Commission said, "The government has been investing huge money for uplifting the capacity of the public agencies over the decades but the project-execution performance is bad this year."
He adds: "The PC regularly sits with the ministries, divisions and with their agencies for streamlining the ADP execution."
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