Bangladeshi Budget Implementation (Countinue)

.........The education ministry spent Tk 3,840 crore--51.9 percent--of it's total allocation of Tk 7,395 crore during July-December 2009, taking steps to distribute stipends and educational materials including textbooks in time. The primary and mass education ministry spent Tk 3,008 crore (45.5 percent) during the period from it's total allocation of Tk 6,611 crore. The expenditure by the agriculture ministry has been the lowest as it spent just Tk 1,074 corer or 18 percent of it's total allocation of Tk 5,965 crore. Ministry officials said the figure is low as they are yet to spend the subsidy amount, which constitutes a major portion of the allocation.

While performance of the Energy and Mineral Resources Division is well, the Power Divisions has a lackluster performance. The size of the total budget for this fiscal year is Tk 1,13,819 crore. These 10 ministries and divisions got allocation of Tk 47,221 crore. In the last budget session of parliament, the government passed the Finance and Budget Management Act to increase efficiency for implementation and to cut wastage. However, the ministries sufficiency in budget implementation has not improved significantly.

Seven of the 10 ministries and divisions could not implement even 40 percent of their total allocation. A finance ministry official said the pay like for civil servants in the new pay scale did not come into effect until December 2009, which kept the overall expenditure low. At the same time, money allocated for a number of large programmers to generate employment could not yet be spent.

The official said many ministries are yet to achieve the desired efficiency in implementing the budget mainly because of delay in tender processing and lack of efficient officials. An officer in the planning ministry said the World Bank temporarily withheld financing in many of it's projects after the government amended the procurement act. This also delayed implementation of the budget of the ministries concerned.

An official of the education ministry said they took initiaties to start implementing their programmers from the beginning of the fiscal year. Giving an example, he said except for a few cases, they distributed school textbooks in time, which generally gets delayed every year. Steps were also taken so that stipends and educational materials reach students in time. The energy and mineral resources division spent Tk519 crore (70.9 percent) of it's total allocation of Tk 732 crore while the power division spent Tk 678 crore (18.9 percent) of it's total allocation of Tk 3,578 crore in the first six months of this fiscal year.

Power division sources said they could not complete the tender processes for most of their power generation projects. Sources at the agriculture ministry said a major part of it's subsidy would be utilized in the next Boro season. The allocation to the ministry would be increased in the revised budget. Of other ministries and divisions, the health and family welfare ministry spent Tk 2,339 crore (33.5 percent) of it's total allocation, the water resources ministry spent Tk 384 crore (25.9 percent), the local government division Tk 3,122 crore (39.4 percent), the housing and public works ministry Tk 296 crore (23.7 percent), and the roads and railways division spent Tk 1,429 crore (27.0 percent).

Besides these 10 ministries and divisions, a few other important ministries also failed to spend their budget allocation in the first six months of the current fiscal year. The finance ministry official said many ministries wxpenditures during this period are lower than those in the same period of the last fiscal year. These ministries have identified delay in finalizing tender processes as the main cause for the low implementation of budget, he added.

by REJAUL KARIM BYRON.