GROWING corruption and irregularities in using the budgetary resources and lack of transparency and accountability in handling the funds in a highly charged political environment is emerging as the biggest challenge. It is difficult, mainly due to highly corrupt ruling party leaders and workers and government employees to save the bigger part of the budget from misuse. As the size of the budget is always getting bigger, even a small percentage of misappropriation will mean now a lot of money. Such were the observation of the economists.
We share the views held by the economists and business leaders at the seminar and suggest that in a private sector driven economy the budgetary focus must be on creating more jobs and income generating activities and the tax and tariff measures must be put in place accordingly. Government expenditure must go to health and education and skill development to create a highly productive manpower. But the economic expansion must essentially come from the private sector with a supportive budget to that end.
Moreover as they said the government dependency on borrowings from banks and such other local sources must be reduced so as to not add to inflation by using the money in non-productive and populist rural programmes. Borrowing is advisable where its economic returns and financial benefits outweigh the repayment burden but recent experiences have showed the opposite. The discussion under the auspices of Economic Reporters’ Forum (ERF) at Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) dealt with basic budgetary issues prior to finalization of the budget for FY 2014-15. They made valuable suggestions at a time when the Finance Minister has announced that the size of the next year’s budget will be at Tk 2,50,000 crore and the tax net will cover every citizen from beggars to the rich at the top.
As we know in a private sector driven economy the size of the government budget must be smaller while the businesses and private sector deserve all sorts of tax and tariff incentives to expand manufacturing and services at all levels. But we see the government is turning out to make a monster budget by exponentially raising the size of the budget and putting much of the money to non-productive use in political fronts while greasing a burgeoning bureaucracy with all sorts of luxury expenditures on the other.
Highlighting the need for more jobs, a participant said 8,000 educated youths recently applied for 21 jobs in an NGO. In another case 52,000 applied for 76 posts at a bank. It all tells about the need for higher priority in the budget to job creation and keep the budget targets achievable. It is for the government to prove that it can produce a realistic budget when nothing seems to be under its control. Rhetoric is easy.
