Social protection budget not as big as projected: CPD

The social protection budget of the government is not as large as it is claimed to be and a major chunk of it actually consists of allocations not specifically targeting the poor or vulnerable groups.

Also, there has been a massive reduction in the allocations for crucial programmes that aims to help school children and reach credit assistance and stipends to those who need them.

Experts said these at a webinar, titled "Looking at Social Protection Budget for Fiscal Year 2021-22 through the Lens of Protecting the Vulnerable", organised by the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) yesterday.

They also said pensions for retired public servants were counted under the social protection budget.

"Recently, two other programmes involving savings certificate interest assistance and agricultural subsidies have been reported as part of social protection, inflating allocations. These three account for 38.6 percent of the social protection budget for fiscal 2021-22," said Towfiqul Islam Khan, senior research fellow at CPD.

Not just that -- even though the allocations for the social protection budget has increased by 12.5 percent compared to the outgoing year, these three had 84 percent of the hike.

Allocations went down massively for crucial programmes that support education, employment and livelihoods, stated Towfiqul.

Allocation for stipends for primary school students has been decreased by 48.8 percent, while stipends for secondary, higher secondary and madrasa students were lowered by 35 percent in the proposed budget, CPD found.

The allocation for the Ashrayan project under which homes are built for the homeless has shrunk by 56.4 percent, while allocations for work for money schemes saw a decrease of 34.1 percent.

Other programmes which saw a decrease in allocations include contraception and family planning services and interest subsidies for small and medium enterprises (including cottage industries) due to the pandemic, the CPD pointed out.

"Allocations for programmes for food security, stipend and credit support programmes have also been lowered," added Towfiqul.

The CPD also said the decrease in credit support programmes' allocation was massive -- a decrease of 431 percent -- because two projects, a refinancing scheme for low income farmers/small traders and an employment generation programme through four state-owned entities, were left out in the next year's budget.

Stipend programmes saw a decrease of 132 percent in allocations.

Speakers commented that there was never a scope for discussing the budget among parliamentary or statutory bodies.

"The problem is that we do not have enough participation from the government in these discussions," said CPD Chair Prof Rehman Sobhan.

Rashed Khan Menon, president of Workers Party of Bangladesh, said, "Our discussions in parliament are meaningless. We are not given enough time. I was given 10 minutes to reflect on the budget. If the parliamentary committees were given the chance to discuss the budget, then there could be constructive debates. When we have to be limited to 'yes or no' votes, our ability to speak up becomes meaningless."

Rehman Sobhan commented on effective implementation of social protection budget. "Now that we have social protection programmes, worth thousands of crores of  Taka, going on, what political weapons are going into the hands of the ruling party?" he asked.

CPD Executive Director Fahmida Khatun noted that the government has a tendency to ignore the new poor.

"We might disagree on the number of the new poor, but there is no doubt that they are there," she said.

In response, Sobhan said, "The concept of the new poor has been used by economists to categorise people. The relevant issue is not a statistical line but the categories of people, and the relevant shocks they face. For example, rickshaw-pullers are part of the new poor, but they have always been vulnerable. Them being over the poverty line does not in any way lower their insecurity. You needed programmes that target their specific problems [whether they're over the poverty line or not]."

"What happens when workers become unemployed? What you needed ahead of time was an unemployment insurance programme for garment workers. Problems are specific to particular categories of people and specific to areas," he said.

Ali Ashraf, MP, chairman, Parliamentary Standing Committee on Government Assurances, spoke at the event. Laila Ashrafun, professor and head of Department of Sociology, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Manisha Chakraborty, member secretary of Bangladesh Samajtantrik Dal's Barisal district unit, Shams Mahmud, former president of Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Ashekur Rahman, assistant resident representative, United Nations Development Programme  (UNDP) also spoke.

CPD Distinguished Fellow Debapriya Bhattacharya chaired the session.