Going on to expenditures an astonishing 10 percent is allocated to pay interest and 13.6 percent for public administration. Education and technology will get only 16.4 percent–most of which is allocated for non-developmental purposes. Transport and communication will get 12.5 percent and defence, agriculture , health and others make up the rest.
What is most astonishing about this budget –more so than the astronomical figures, is the fact that the government fully expects to spend the entire amount. But rather than making such humongous budgets ways should be seen to cut expenditure so that the burden on tax-payers is reduced.
Lets start with the government banks – almost Tk 14500 crore of tax-payer’s money has been spent on bailing them out, an abysmal waste of resources. It is tantamount to a transfer of money from honest tax-payers to the rich individuals who have looted the banks. Why should it be acceptable?
Next we come to big infrastructure projects whose costs double and even quadruple in a manner unknown in any other country. The Dhaka-Chittagong four-lane highway project, taken up in 2005, was to complete in 2012 at an estimated cost of Tk 1,600 crore. But it didn’t. By the time the construction completed in the middle of last year, the cost shot up to Tk 3,900 crore — a rise of nearly 150 percent.
But the tax-payers, whose money paid for the highway, are yet to reap the full benefit due to poor planning, faulty design and a lack of vision. Chittagong is some 265km from Dhaka and the travel time should be maximum three and a half hours at 80km per hour. In reality though, it still takes about 15 to 16 hours on some days because of traffic congestion, mainly at two points — Kanchpur and Meghna bridges.
The second example of such poor-quality spending is the 8.25km Moghbazar-Mouchak flyover project taken up in January 2011. It was to complete in 2015. Later, the deadline was extended by 18 months and the cost shot up to Tk 1,327 crore, nearly double the primary estimate.
To ensure the best use of every penny, Muhith’s focus should have been on improving capacity and governance and combating corruption, which eats away a big chunk of the government’s hard-earned revenue.
The total outlay is not “ambitious” as dubbed by many, including some BNP leaders. The upcoming budget size is only 16 percent of the GDP; in emerging and developing economies around the world, the outlay is up to 30.8 percent of the GDP. The Finance Minister wants to raise it to 19 percent of the GDP in the next few years. But incremental expenditure and revenue targets without increasing the capacity will only widen the scopes for further pilferage of the limited resources.
There is nothing wrong in raising taxes, without which government cannot serve the people. Sometimes tax needs to be increased to help deal with economic problems, such as financing the budget deficit and giving incentives and subsidies to different vulnerable groups of the society.
But tax-payers have a right to know where the money is going and how efficiently it is being spent. Also, is their money going to bring them quality services?
