THE National Budget for Fiscal 2016-17 with the expenditure outlay of over Tk 3.40 trillion is 29 percent bigger of the revised budget of the outgoing fiscal and as per expert opinion such leap forward in a single year since the past few years may fit to the government political ambition but the reality in the ground does not much support it. In our view financing of the huge budget will be the biggest challenge to the government as it has to collect extra Tk 77 thousand crore next year to attain its overall revenue target at Tk 2.42 trillion. Though the Finance Minister is much optimistic, we don’t know how the economy will create so much revenue overnight. During the outgoing fiscal, the NBR revenue shortfall was reported at Tk 30 thousand crore and it spells doubt how yet bigger revenue targets may be achieved for next year. The budget has made enhanced allocation to different development Ministries like Communications and Energy, Health and Education while earmarking huge fund also for mega projects. But it appears that the biggest chunk of the budgetary resources will go to funding administrative activities with priority to footing the pay bills of the bureaucracy. The Annual Development Programme (ADP) at a cost of over Tk 1.10 trillion with an overall budgetary deficit of Tk 97.853 crore shows that almost the entire ADP is in a way dependent on deficit financing from banks, non-banks and external sources. Such borrowing can only be justified when the quality of budgetary expenditure can be ensured. The budget shows Finance Minister AMA Muhith has tried to mobilize the highest amount of resources to break the 7 percent growth trajectory to accelerate the country’s economic development, mainly focused on attaining the middle status for the country by 2021. But what puzzles the economists is that where the government’s political leadership is scandalous and its administrative capacity is very poor, the implementation of such huge budget may face many uncertainties. When poor governance and unbridled corruption at all levels are at its peak; the bigger budget may only result in yet bigger corruption and budgetary chaos. This is more so when the party men and dishonest government officials are robbing every financial institution including the budgetary resources under the cover of government projects. We see that the budget is swallowing in size every year but its benefit to common people in not much visible. Big budget only means goods pay and benefits to government employees. Contrary to it, the drastic fall in annual job creation in the country to three lakhs now on an average from 2013 as against 1.2 million annually from 2002 shows that such big budget does not mean big development, except tall talks by the government leaders. The new budget will push prices of agricultural equipment and bakery products up for example to suggest that common people will be hurt. In our view budgetary proposals that call for new tax on good and services used by ordinary people should be reviewed to protect the interest of people at lower level of the society.
