Nobody was expecting anything new and the budget was not disappointing that way. It’s a budget of convenience and beyond the numbers is about Bangladesh trying to cope with an emergency. People have stopped looking at budgetary allocations and it’s probably only economists and politicians who bother. And they bother largely because they have to give their reactions to the media. Nobody quite knows what a budget does, In the end, it’s about how people will cope with the cost of living and if there is going to be enough to make the year go by comfortably for the majority.
Knowing which price is going to go up are probably not on the list fully since costs are not finalized in the budget only. Many other systems and methods of cost and price fixing are on. Basically, people are not exactly aware how they are going to cope with what is obviously the most difficult year since Bangladesh began. Others have been tough but this one threatens both life and livelihood.
What has drawn some attention is the funding of the budget. The conventional dependence is there not much imagination is noticed. The traditional financial sector is going to be the lender but one is never sure how much public confidence this arrangement enjoys.. As a result, there is concern as to what kind of benefits are being thought of as transactional costs for securing funds from the financial sector.
Politicians have already started to do their thing that is both praise and trash. About 1/ 3 of the budget has to be funded from debt sources and that is a reality which we barely understand. This however is a standard talk so it doesn’t matter but the issue will be there and some talk has to go on this.
Is the budget investment friendly ? A 35.6% budget gap between expenditure and income is notable but the NBR, though high is still behind its objective. The GDP growth target rate 7.2 % is ambitious but Bangladesh has done well but it’s tough to say how this equitably distributed. Usually it’s a no questions asked issue every year as no one can predict how much of the budget can be actually implemented but this year one needs a little more guarantee.
The big attention therefore is Covid management. The budget states that 10,000 crore is allocated fpr Covid apart from the usual allocation for the health sector. It has got 32.7 thousand crore but to translate that money into action requires a whole set of governance machinery which till data is not there as it should be. Hence the Covid concern remains.
There is not much reaction or response around other than the usual critique and praise but the budget as a reflection of state objectives is limited. Covid crisis itself showed that allocation doesn’t produce results and corruption could be the great facilitating factor. In that case, those most interested in the budget are those who are going to spend the money in the name of the people.
And that is never mentioned in the budget.
