Kamal rejects new poor data of think tanks

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal yesterday refused to accept data on the new poor released earlier through surveys conducted by private research organisations to measure the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic-induced income losses.

"We need to know first who is on this list and how they collected the number of poor," he told journalists after a meeting of the cabinet committee on purchase.

"I do not accept this data on new poor. It is important to know the source of the data, which says the country has 2 crore or 1 crore or 10 new poor," he said.

"Outside of these two organisations (the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics and the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies), I can't accept anyone else's information in this regard," he added.

Over the last one year, the Brac Institute of Governance and Development, Power and Participation Research Centre, Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) and South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM) carried out surveys on several occasions.

They found that poverty rates rose 35 per cent to 43 per cent as many lost income opportunities in the wake of countrywide shutdowns and the resultant economic slowdown.

The government agencies, notably the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), did not carry out any survey during the pandemic and it maintains the poverty rate of the population to be at 20.5 per cent.

The finance minister did not respond to questions over inconsistencies in macroeconomic data used by the Finance Division and Planning Commission in the budget documents, Medium Term Macroeconomic Policy Statement 2021-22 to 2023-24 and 8th Five Year Plan.

The CPD, SANEM and Citizen's Platform for SDGs Bangladesh raised the issue of data and the platform's convener, Debapriya Bhattacharya, earlier termed the mismatch "data anarchy".

Asked, Kamal suggested that the media submit questions in writing.

He also said economy would grow at a higher pace than not only what the government estimated but also from what the World Bank projected.

He said given the current trends, the economy would expand higher than the target of 6.1 per cent in the current fiscal year of 2020-21.

However, the World Bank in a report released on Tuesday estimates that the growth would be 3.6 per cent this fiscal year.

For fiscal 2021-22, it projected a 5.1 per cent growth. The government targets to achieve 7.2 per cent.

"Amid the recent pace of the economy, we will be on top of the rest of South Asia and Southeast Asia in terms of GDP growth. We believe that we will be able to achieve the projection we have made in FY 2021-22," said Kamal.

He said if the budget was implemented, apprehension about the new poor would go away as then they would become the beneficiaries.

"This budget has been formulated keeping poor people in mind. There is no weakness in this budget, but strength only. This government is working to bring up the bottom 20 per cent of the people," he said.

The purchase committee gave approvals to a total of 11 projects involving Tk 2,579 crore.

Of the total project cost, the government will provide Tk 890 crore and the rest will come from foreign sources, including Asian Development Bank and European Investment Bank.

Of the projects, Bangladesh Computer Council will implement a project to set up optical fibre cables for high-frequency telecommunication network in the hilly Bandarban, Rangamati and Khagrachhari districts.