Supplementary Budget: Passed amid uproar over graft
Baffling -- is how one would describe the parliamentary session in which the Tk 13,987.3 crore supplementary budget for fiscal 2020-21 was passed.
All sorts of questions were asked of the finance minister save for the most exigent one.
In a fiscal year like no other, one in which lives and livelihoods were upended like never before, spending by the government -- and that too with an open hand -- was much needed.
And yet there was nary a question on how much of the Tk 568,000 crore budget that Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal had arranged for the current fiscal year was actually spent.
Not much -- would have been the answer.
In the first nine months, Tk 225,588 crore was spent, meaning it could not even spend half of the budget with three-fourths the fiscal year gone.
Not just that, there was no question asked of the finance minister of the poor implementation when the circumstances demanded the opposite from him.
The budget that is drafted every year in June tends to be based on estimates. So by the time the revised budget is made, the finance ministry has a better feel of the economy.
Which is why it was so necessary that the finance minister was grilled at the session yesterday.
Did the number of poor really spiral that much? Has the finance ministry made any effort to find out the true number? Why did the health budget remain unspent in a year of a public health crisis?
All imperative questions that neither the finance minister nor the parliamentarians sweated over.
Even in his budget speech for fiscal 2021-22 on June 3 that spanned 140-odd pages, barely 1.5 pages were dedicated to the supplementary budget, which saw higher allocations for 19 ministries and divisions and reduced allocation for 43.
The revised budget for fiscal 2020-21 now stands at Tk 538,983 crore.
The local government division got the highest allocation of Tk 2,890.5 crore, while the rural development and cooperatives division the lowest of Tk 1.4 crore
The Prime Minister's Office got Tk 482 crore while cabinet division Tk 9.7 crore, election commission secretariat Tk 79.1 crore, financial institutions division Tk 205.6 crore, planning division Tk 242.8 crore, IMED Tk 6.7 crore, statistics and information management division Tk 142.8 crore, primary and mass education ministry Tk 1,005.2 crore, health services division Tk 2,850.5 crore, housing and public works ministry Tk 489.4 crore, religious affairs ministry Tk 384.5 crore, industries ministry Tk 565.4 crore, textile and jute ministry Tk 1,905.7 crore, fisheries and livestock ministry Tk 332.8 crore, water resources ministry Tk 1,040 crore, transportation and highways division Tk 676.6 crore and shipping ministry Tk 676.7 crore.
BNP MP Harunur Rashid said The financial sector is in a bad way because of corruption, said BNP MP Harunur Rashid.
The finance minister's indication of the continuation of easy amnesty to black money into the new fiscal year goes against the Prime Minister's declaration of zero-tolerance against corruption, he said.
Another BNP member Rumeen Farhana asked what actions were taken against the list of 300 loan defaulters placed at the parliament.
Jatiya Party MP Kazi Firoz Rashid said many Bangladeshis with illegal money and wealth resides abroad.
So, the Anti-Corruption Commission should have offices in Canada, Malaysia, Australia and others countries, he added.
Another JP MP Rowshan Ara Mannan said that banking and financial institutions have become like "tortured orphans without in absence of any caregiver. Looting and corruption are taking place but none were punished for that."
In reply to the criticisms, Kamal said they would enact 15 laws in the next year for the reformation of the financial sector.
He said like the others he also feel pain when the hard-earned money of the countrymen was laundered abroad and he also wants to stop it.
"Money laundering has reduced significantly. The situation is not the same as before. In the past, sand used to come in the name of cement. Under-invoicing, over-invoicing is not like before. I will not say it has completely stopped. I can't see that much in the newspapers like the past," he said.
The finance minister said he did not know who took the money abroad.
"I don't have a list of who took the money. Give us the names. It will be easier for us to do the job. Many are still in jail or are under trial."
In the last decade, the interest rate on loans and the default rate have come down.
In 2008, the total loan outstanding was Tk 1.52 lakh crore. This has now increased eightfold to Tk 11.08 crore.
Responding to the criticism of the capital market, he said: "How has the stock market tanked? The daily average transaction was Tk 26 crore when the government first took power which has now increased 30 times."
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