Call to raise allocation for edn, health, agriculture

Speakers at a post-budget meeting on Sunday called for increasing budgetary allocations for education, health and agriculture sectors aiming to ensure socio-economic freedom of the people.
The quality of budget expenditure should also be ensured to take the benefits to the common people, they said at the view-exchange meeting.
Democratic Budget Movement (DBM) organised the discussion meeting styled "Fiscal Budget 2015-16: People's Demands and Reflections" at the Sagar-Runi Auditorium of Dhaka Reporters Unity (DRU) in the city.
Mustofa Monwar, a member of the DBM who presented a keynote paper at the meeting, said allocation for education had been declining since the fiscal year 2009-10 in terms of its share of the total budget and the country's gross domestic product (GDP).
Budgetary allocation for the education sector in the FY 2010 was 16.3 per cent, but it came down to 11.6 per cent in the proposed budget for FY '16.
He said the health sector got only 4.5 per cent allocation in the budget for the FY '16 against 6.1 per cent in the FY '10. In terms of the GDP, the allocation for the health sector is less than 0.9 per cent, the lowest in South Asia.
According to the keynote paper, farmers still account for 47.3 per cent of the total workforce, but the budgetary allocation for agriculture declined to 6.8 per cent in the proposed budget for FY '16 from over 7.2 per cent five years back.
Former president of Bangladesh Medical Association (BMA) Dr Rashid-e-Mahbub said the health sector was still in disarray.
The allocation for health sector was shrinking gradually, he said, alleging that a significant amount of the decreased allocation was being looted by a section of unscrupulous officials.
He said the government had been reducing budget for the health sector to encourage private medicare. "But space for poor and marginalised people is limited in private hospitals and healthcare centres which are very expensive."        
Chief convener of National Teachers and Employees' Front Prof Qazi Faruqe Ahmed said allocation for education should be at least 20 per cent of the total budget.
"To build Bangladesh as a country of skilled and meritorious people, there is no alternative but to ensure quality education," he added.
Economist Prof Anu Muhammad said people were not aware that they were paying every paisa (penny) the government was spending.
He said a budget is a document of understanding between the government and its citizens.
"The government is bound to return the money to the people by providing them with civic amenities. If it (government) doesn't do so, the people should realise that the money is pocketed by only an influential quarter."
Quoting from newspapers and researches, Mr Anu said capital flight from the country reached $1.0 billion (100 crore) annually while the volume of black money in the country was more than 60 per cent of GDP.
"Despite such looting, the country is still on the track of development and this happens only for three communities - farmers, RMG workers and expatriates."
He added: "The government should give the highest allocation for the three driving forces of the economy."
AR Aman, general secretary of DBM, said it was a good sign that the country's budget size was getting larger gradually.
"But composition of allocation is also more important."
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