Unified budget proposal dropped as PM opposes

The finance ministry has backtracked on framing the unified budget as the Prime Minister has opposed the 'experiment' following reservations of the planning commission and a few senior policy makers, officials said Wednesday. The PM has ordered modifying the 'coding system' in the public fund management process, as proposed by the finance ministry, revising the existing method for expenditure of the development budget, a top government official said. The official without quoting his name told the FE that in the last meeting at Gonobhaban, the PM has asked the finance ministry to scrap its move on the unified budget preparation. As per the finance minister's promise in the last budget speech, the finance ministry had taken initiatives for preparing a 'unified national budget' from the next fiscal abolishing the existing 'revenue' and 'development' budget format. Finance ministry officials said they had taken the initiative to harmonise the revenue and development budgets often creating problems in fund management and monitoring its utilisation. The finance ministry, in its initial attempt, asked the government's two leading budget spenders --the education and agriculture ministries-- to frame the unified budget for the upcoming 2011-12 fiscal. Unified budget means a national budget, where the existing separate formats under 'revenue' and 'development' will be merged together. The senior government official said: "The planning commission and the agriculture minister strongly protested the unified budget at the last meeting at Gonobhaban with the PM." At the meeting, agriculture minister Begum Matia Chowdhury said that they didn't want to go for any new experiment on the budget process, which could create a mess in the fiscal management at the last stage of the government's tenure, the official said. The Prime Minister also called another meeting early last month on the proposed budget format, where the planning commission strongly opposed the unified budget. The commission said such an initiative would in effect abolish the existence of the Planning Commission undermining the entire process of planning development programmes and projects. It also said that as they manage the annual development programme (ADP) based on the long-term vision of the government, the 'unified budget' could cerate room for misappropriation of the public fund. A senior planning ministry official said: "A unified budget is likely to create an option for transferring funds of the development budget to non-development budget curtailing the required development expenditures," He said the donor-advised unified budget would make the finance ministry more powerful as it will then handle entire development programmes including project approval and fund allocations. At present, the planning commission approves projects proposed by the ministries and allocates funds based on the priority lists of the government and its development goal. "The present 'revenue' and 'development' budget format has been in practice since the creation of Bangladesh. A sudden change in the format can create massive mismanagement in the public expenditure," said the planning ministry official.