Lowering inflation, containing unnecessary imports and expanding the social-safety net for the have-nots may feature the forthcoming budgetary measures as Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina suggests and discourages spendthrift election budget.
She gave the direction on Wednesday night when the draft budget for the fiscal year 2023-24 was placed before her for endorsement, finance officials said.
“The Prime Minister asked us to make the next budget people’s welfare-oriented,” said one official who was present at the meeting.
He said the Prime Minister asked for necessary measures to lower inflation as people are directly affected when commodity prices go up.
During the last couple of months, the rate of inflation remained over and around 9.0 per cent that eroded people’s purchasing capacity and pushed even many lower-middle- income group of people to run behind the trucks where essential commodities were sold at subsidised rates.
The officials said the premier also ordered containing unnecessary imports like in the current fiscal year as they create pressure on foreign-currency reserves.
The Prime Minister gave importance on expansion of the coverage of social-safety-net instead of raising the amount of allowance for the beneficiaries, the official said.
In the draft budget, the finance-division officials proposed an allocation of Tk 1.18 trillion, up from Tk 1.13 trillion in the current fiscal year, for social-safety-net recipe.
At the meeting, the Prime Minister made it clear that the next fiscal budget would not be an election-targeted budget. “She would not make any allocation keeping in mind political considerations,” the official said, seeking anonymity.
He said the much-talked-about dearness allowance for public employees did not come up for discussion at the meeting, held at the Prime Minister’s official residence Ganabhaban.
There has been discussion that instead of introducing a new pay commission, the government may provide dearness allowance to the government employees at a rate of 20 per cent of their basic pay.
The recent visit of a mission of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which gauged the reform progresses relating to the $4.7 billion loan also was not discussed at the meeting, the official said.
However, the Prime Minister was apprised about a slight increase in the forex-reserve position this week after getting some loans from the World Bank.
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal is set to place a Tk 7.64-trillion budget for the next fiscal year in parliament on June 1. This will be the last budget of the current government as the next general election is likely to be held in December or January next.
syful-islam@outlook.com