Dr. M Abul Kashem Mozumder and Dr. Md. Shairul Mashreque :
Public policy may be defined as rules of laws, code of conduct, a cluster of priorities reflected in national budget or budgetary statement and ‘governmental actions that reflect the attitudes and rules selected for the public. The public interest or public good as expressed in principles that guide the interpretation and enforcement of the law’
“Policy-making involves both a technical and political process of articulating and matching actors’ goals and means. Policies are thus actions which contain goal (s) and the means to achieve them, however well or poorly identified, justified, articulated and formulated. Probably the best-known, simple and short definition of public policy has been offered by Thomas Dye, ‘anything a government chooses to do or not to do’. While many organizations and actors create policies to which their members must adhere, we focus on ‘public’ policies made by governments that affect and influence every member of a nation-state or a subnational jurisdiction. The ‘actions’ we are concerned with in this case are government decisions to act, or not to act, to change or maintain some aspect of the status quo”.
A budget is a financial plan for a defined period of time, usually a year. It may also include planned sales volumes and revenues, resource quantities, costs and expenses, assets, liabilities and cash flows. Companies, governments, families and other organizations use it to express strategic plans of activities or events in measurable terms. A budget is the sum of money allocated for a particular purpose and the summary of intended expenditures along with proposals for how to meet them. It may include a budget surplus, providing money for use at a future time, or a deficit in which expenses exceed income.
Development intervention through public policy is now a favorite of intellectual discussion as it very much concerns about institutional governance with the participation of the stakeholders to fulfill its desired objectives. Beneficiaries of public policy look to governing institutions both public and private for better service for ameliorating their socio-economic conditions.
In the process of governance the government has to interact with civil societies and NGOs. In fact NGOs have long been handling their projects flowing from policy direction by structured flexibility approach. Self-assessment mechanism, regular monitoring and intermittent change of techniques. if situation demands. This is really efficient and apt management of implementation.
Of course there lies a symbiotic relation between budget and public policy. Policy issues of contemporary significance are addressed through national budget. So to say national budget is a vehicle for the implementation of public policy. It provides allocations of money for each sector or sub-sector of development. This is also a development intervention.
Doubtless government has been trying to bolster our economy claiming that Bangladesh is becoming emerging tiger. It is becoming middle-income country in global economy. The state tries its level best to nourish our economy to make it more vibrant and flourishing with micro-industrial development, seven percent growth and massive infrastructure development. At the social level the government endeavors to reduce income poverty, infant mortality and increase nutritional intake.
Nevertheless the daunting challenge is smart implementation of budget meaning a right way of turning public policy into a reality. Such lofty objectives could have been fulfilled by now. We are handicapped by vitiated political environment. There is a lack of good governance. Revenue collection with the dynamic role of NBR deserves mention. Its initiatives are all embracing raising consciousness of the taxpayers to become a recognized honorable citizen with certificate. Tax festival is also arranged for the convenience of the enthusiastic taxpayers. But the inefficiency of tax administration needs to be addressed. “The administrative and management capacity of the taxperson remains a major determinant in deciding the success of any new and automated system, not to speak of such a complex system as the VAT. Awareness building campaign in the form of training, conference, sector wise group consultations for business entities, which are also critically important determinants, have also remained inadequate till now.
This is particularly important to make the end users at the periphery areas more comfortable about the new system. The strategy in the areas of regulation and monitoring as regards technical issues concerning the new VAT system are, however, not clear. NBR needs to integrate a number of government and autonomous agencies in the system for information sharing, but their capacity to comply with the system remains a concern.7 Taking cue from the concerns raised during preparation of the enforcement of the law, NBR should frame a comprehensive enforcement plan on an urgent basis, and make a public announcement of this plan prior to enforcement of the VAT law as of 1 July 2017. This will provide all relevant stakeholders including producers and consumers with clear information and guidelines about enforcement of the law. Business entities (which are vested with the responsibility of collecting the VAT from consumers) have voiced their opposition to the uniform VAT rate of 15 per cent on the ground that this was on the high side”.
Even then our economy bears the stamp of poverty. Rural urban disparity has multiplied. The share of the poor and low middle-income groups has shrieked. The skyrocketing prices of essentials hit the poor threatening them to become poorer. Added to it massive corruption and money laundering through alleged financial scam in banking sector contribute to the level of pauperization of the fixed and poor income segments of the population.
Development through private sector cannot be left out of equation. Private initiatives ought to be encouraged through budget. “While there is no denying that the causal relationship between policies and private sector investment patterns call for more rigorous and in-depth analysis, there are also other factors including infrastructure, overall business environment and regulatory regime which have important impact on entrepreneurs’ investment decisions. However, the need for better targeting and better deployment of policy tools in countries such as Bangladesh cannot be overemphasized. Most vital point of our economy is escalation of income gap between the low middle/hard core poor class and the rising tycoons plundering resources. Rich is becoming richer and the poor poorer. This a natural order. But some blessed by the corrupt politico-administrative system are becoming rich with the increasing opportunities for unearned income. Fewer initiatives are reported to stem the tide of corruption and malfeasance. Development through smart implementation of budget to improve the state of our economy warrants elimination of corruption in politics and administration. Our budget must be poor and fixed income group friendly encouraging saving with a reasonable rate of interest. Tax on accumulated money out of saving is not a rational policy. They must be brought to an access point to housing policy through real estate development. Those among builders trying to provide houses for the low-income groups should be given rebate or tax holidays.
This is the way things operate in the realm of governance. If priorities couched in budget are implemented by budget every year then even lofty goals of public policy say vision 2021 and SDG may well be reached.
(Dr. M Abul Kashem Mozumder, Pro-VC, BUP and Dr. Md. Shairul Mashreque, Retired Professor, Chittagong University).
