Staff Reporter :
The Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), in an instant reaction, on Thursday said that the proposed budget does not have clear guidelines for recovering the country’s economy from the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
The government did not allocate the amount of money that should have been for health, education and social security sector, it said.
“The proposed budget will face challenges for weak assumptions and implementation limitations,” said Fahmida Khatun, Executive Director of the CPD, while at a press conference at her facebook live page.
Mustafizur Rahman, Special Fellow of CPD, Khandker Golam Moazzem, Research Director and Towfiqul Islam, Senior Research Fellow, were also present.
“Tk 10,000 crore has been proposed in the budget as an emergency fund to face the Covid-19 pandemic. We think the amount is not enough,” Fahmida said.
“All the people, eligible for vaccination, should be vaccinated. No one should be deprived of the vaccination programme,” she said.
She said, “Some 0.83 percent of the GDP has been allocated health sector in the proposed budget. The same amount in the current fiscal year. It means the allocation in health sector has not been increased.”
Criticizing the health ministry not for implementing budgetary allocation, she said, “The health sector should be reformed. It needs to be our first priority to face Covid-19 pandemic. It needs to manage sufficient ICUs and Oxygens, doctors and nurses in the hospitals.”
Fahmida said, “Allocations to the social security sector have increased, but pensions for the government officials have been included in the sector. So, the allocation in the sector should be increased.”
The budget does not have clear directions for recovering economy during the pandemic but it should. It has also no clear directions for the development of the social security, health education sectors,” she said.
“CPD thinks that the expected development expenditure has not been increased despite non-development expenditure has been increased in the proposed budget. So, it should be increased,” Fahmida said.
