A good number of budget documents are tabled in the Jatiya Sangsad (National Parliament) when the Finance Minister delivers his budget speech. This year, too, Finance Minister AMA Muhith presented such documents weighing 6/7 kgs. These include budget speech 2015-16 (Bangladesh Marches Towards Prosperity, Paving the Way for Higher Growth), Medium-Term Macro-economic Policy Statement, Annual Financial Statement, Budget in Brief (Annual Budget 2015-16), Demands for Grants and Appropriations (non-development and development), supplementary financial statement 2014-15, consolidated fund receipts 2015-16, medium-term budget framework 2015-16 to 2017-18, report on the progress towards digital Bangladesh 2015, gender budget report 2015-16, Shishuder Neya Budget Bhabna (Budget Thoughts on Children) 2015-16.
While Annual Financial Statement, budget in brief, demands for grants and appropriations, consolidated fund, receipts and supplementary financial statement of the outgoing financial year form the core of the budget, other documents like medium-term budget framework, gender budget report, budget for children and progress towards digital Bangladesh are reports on the advancement of the concerned sectors and some are policy statements. These reports are helpful for lawmakers, policy makers, researchers and members of the civil society. Through these reports the government also tries to demonstrate its success in the respective fields. This year, the finance minister tabled budget thoughts on children along with other documents. This is new in Bangladesh. Last year, a district budget (for Tangail district) was placed in the Jatiya Sangsad. It has been discontinued in the present fiscal on the groound that there is no district government in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh is a developing country beset with all the problems characterising under development. In spite of progress on the socio-economic front, the country lacks good governance. Experts say that Bangladesh could develop still more had there been good governance. The finance minister seems to be aware of that. Sometimes, he reacts and makes angry outbursts and on some other occasions, expresses his inability to combat misgovernance as he did on June 30, 2015. In reply to questions by some MPs (members of parliament) pertaining to scams in the financial sector, he said big scamsters were protected by "our people."
Good governance is an umbrella term which entails many things like (i) making parliamentary process effective, (ii) reforming and strengthening public service, (iii) ensuring public life and safety, (iv) improving financial sector, (v) ensuring rule of law and justice, (vi) ensuring human rights, (vii) strengthening local governments, (viii) combating corruption and (ix) improving project implementation capacity.
If one judges the prevailing situation in Bangladesh against each of the parameters of good governance one will not be able to come to positive conclusion.
People are not happy with the conditions of public life. Everyday there are road accidents. The country is losing thousands of lives every year in this way. There are incidents of launch capsizes, trawlers and boat disasters. Everyday, there are incidents of killing, rape and hijacking. There is unbearable traffic jam, particularly in Dhaka city. An employee residing at Mirpur and working at Motijheel spends five hours in the transport on his way to and from Motijheel. Rains cause immense sufferings for the city dwellers. Canals and ponds of the city have been illegally occupied by powerful people. The land grabbers have occupied rivers. There are scores of extra-judicial killings and disappearance (according to Ain-o-Salish Kendra, there were 101 extra-judicial killings and 29 forced disappearances from January 01 to June 30, 2015). There are reports of extortion, bribery, and tender trade. Without money, people in general do not get utility services. Load shedding is still there. In some areas, people do not get regular gas supply.
In the banking sector, the situation has taken a shameful shape. This is evident when the finance minister himself disclosed in parliament on Sonali Bank loan scam saying that "scamster got scot-free due to backing". He expressed his concern over the Hallmark and Basic Bank loan scams. It may be mentioned that Tk. 120 billion (12 thousand crores) were swindled from Sonali Bank, Basic Bank and Janata Bank -- all of them are state-owned. There has also been some reports that loan defaulting has been on the rise. Very recently, loans worth Tk.550 billion were written off. On the other hand, the government has been allocating money in the budget every year to reinforce the dwindling capital of the state-owned and specialised banks. On both counts, people are reimbursing defaulting loans and embezzled money.
Project implementation capacity is also a subject of criticism in Bangladesh. Approval, monitoring and implementation of development projects have inherent weaknesses. Many projects are ill-conceived and ill-planned. For example, the cost of Padma bridge project has already risen by 18 per cent. The implementation of Annual Development Programme (ADP) also shows some interesting features. The first nine months show implementation progress of 52 per cent to 56 per cent every year. Interestingly, it jumps to 90 per cent during the last quarter of the fiscal year raising questions about quality and actual physical progress of the job. Many projects are time over-run and cost over-run. Examples of such projects can be drawn from the implementation progress report by the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED). One example will suffice. According to IMED, 233 projects were completed out of 1,366 projects. Out of the completed projects, implementation period was extended for 189 projects and cost increased in the case of 86 projects (time and cost mutually exclusive). The average implementation period was 5.04 years against projected 2.89 years for each of the completed projects. Cost, on the other hand, increased by 51.11 per cent in respect of every cost over-run project.
Thus, governance issue lies at the core of many problems that beset socio-economic development of the country. With his spirit and commitment, the finance minister could have produced a report on governance issues in Jatiya Sangsad as he presented several other reports. Such a report is necessary for guidance and correction.
The writer is an economist and columnist.
chowdhuryjafar@gmail.com
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