Issues beyond maze of budgetary statistics

A budget, prepared at the national level, is not just a document of income and expenditure for a particular year. It is also seen as the means to achieving certain economic and social goals. However, at times, the ruling class tries to spearhead its own political ideology using it as a plank. 

So, perfect implementation of the budget is sine qua non for attaining all the goals, social, economic and political, if there is any. However, it does not happen automatically. The government does need to meet certain conditions, mobilising resources in accordance with the projections made in the budget giving top priority, for implementation of the budget. 

The quality and suitability of the budget goals are also important. No less important is the quality of spending of budgetary resources. The spending has to be in line with the national development goals such as higher economic growth and poverty reduction through generation of sufficient employment opportunities.

Mobilising sufficient resources for meeting an ever-increasing recurrent and development expenditure has always been a tough job for any government of a country like Bangladesh. The difficulty has been more in the case of getting local funds since most people having taxable income are unwilling to pay tax. The businesses do demand tax concessions to the fullest extent from the government. Scores of demands made by different business bodies during the formative stage of the budget is a pointer to that fact. But when it comes to paying taxes in right amounts, they are found to be evasive. Even they are not willing to keep their business transactions records fairly. 

One particular demand coming from the leaders of a major sector does highlight their irrational stance on resource mobilisation on the part of the government. They want the government to allow investment of 'undisclosed' money in the sector under a special tax rebate facility. More importantly, they want the government to ensure that no government agency would ask any question about the source of such funds. The government cannot restrain the relevant agency from making probe into illegal funds since it is legally mandated to carry out such tasks.  

Moreover, getting resources from the businesses through tax measures is becoming increasingly difficult lately because of the dominance of the businessmen in parliament and government.  

However, securing foreign assistance for financing the development budgets has not been a big problem for Bangladesh. Rather it has got foreign funds beyond its spending capacity. Foreign project aid worth nearly $23 billion has remained unspent until now. The stockpiled volume of foreign aid, it is feared, would bulge further unless the absorption capacity of the same is beefed up. But there is no sign of efforts directed towards boosting the development project execution capacity of the government agency concerned. 

 As mentioned above, the allocation of resources in right amount for right and priority areas and the efficient use of the same are very important. So, it does appear that all the issues have to move in tandem towards goals set in the budget document. Only then people would believe that what the finance ministers say in their budget speeches is not just rhetoric and carry some substance. 

Finance Minister AMA Muhith, during the presentation of budget for the upcoming fiscal, apparently, got himself lost in a maze of hard numbers and lofty goals. But occasionally, particularly at the end of his budget speech, he pointed out some vitally important national issues that, it seems, were born out of his personal feeling. In the government, almost everyone talks about those issues just for public consumption but, in real life, he or she does the opposite. 

The issues are good governance, rule of law and 'people-centric local government' system. There could be 7.0 to 8.0 per cent economic growth and without those issues in place, the benefits would hardly reach the people who need the same most. Moreover, under a perfect government, suspicion about official data manipulation to project positive economic achievements would also go away. 

Concluding his budget speech, Mr. Muhith presented a long list of jobs that needed to be accomplished to reach the 'cherished destination'. Good governance, rule of law and reform of the existing local government (LG) system were among them. 

But getting those issues in place in right manner could prove a very daunting task in Bangladesh. No amount of money can ensure good governance, rule of law and reform of LG system. Unfortunately, the rot has gone too deep. Successive regimes, political or otherwise, have shown strong dislike for these good things. Of the three, ensuring good governance and rule of law seems to be a job tougher than reforming the LG system. The nation may have to wait for many more decades to see good governance and rule of law in place. Sounds pessimistic? But under the prevailing circumstances, one has no other option but to look at the prospect rather pessimistically. 

However, LG reform remains a soft suggestion. But the finance minister appears to be conscious about the hurdles. That is why he has used the word devolution, not decentralisation, of power to LG bodies to help 'infuse dynamism' in development initiatives. It is to be seen how the lawmakers respond to Mr. Muhith's suggestion about the reform of the LG system. 

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