The government’s development expenditure in the first 11 months of the current fiscal year experienced a record low at 67 per cent, the lowest in last five years, despite an expenditure spree in May, planning ministry officials said. The sluggish trend in implementation of the annual development programme in July-May has put the possibility of full implementation of the revised ADP in doubt, experts and officials said.
They said that the probable expenditure spree in June by the government to achieve the target of full ADP implementation would also cause wastage of taxpayers’ money and worsen the quality of development work.
In June, the last month of the fiscal year, the government development agencies will have to spend 33 per cent or Tk 20,018 crore to implement the revised ADP of Tk 60,000 crore fixed for the year 2013-14, according to the planning ministry data released on Thursday.
In July-May, the 54 government ministries and divisions spent only Tk 39,982 crore or 67 per cent, according to the data of the Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation Division of the planning ministry.
In the same period of the last four fiscal years—FY2012-2013, FY2011-2012, FY2010-2011, and FY2009-2010—the rates of ADP implementation were 69 per cent, 70 per cent, 72 per cent and 68 per cent respectively.
The government in April downscaled the ADP size to Tk 60,000 crore from Tk 65,870 crore considering the poor implementation rate and shortfall in revenue collection.
Experts suspected that the government like previous years might go on a spending spree in the last month of the fiscal year to achieve the target of full ADP implementation, compromising on the quality of work and wasting public money.
In many cases, the government agencies may make payment in advance to the contractors keeping the work unimplemented to show higher implementation rate, they said.
‘The government will not be able to implement the revised ADP despite unusual expenditure in the last month because of sluggish trend in 11 months which has been happening all over the last years,’ adviser to the former caretaker government Mirza Azizul Islam told New Age on Thursday.
Though rush in fund release to achieve higher expenditure rate by the end of the year, the government may spend maximum Tk 53,000 crore to 54,000 crore of the revised ADP, he said.
Quick expenditure will deteriorate the quality of work, he said.
Strong political will and incentive for timely implementation and penalty for failure are required to solve the prolong problems in implementation, he suggested.
The IMED data showed the overall implementation progress of the ADP was 96 per cent in FY 2012-2013, 93 per cent in FY2011-12, 92 per cent in 2010-11, 91 per cent in 2009-10 and 86 per cent in 2008-09.
Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies research director Zaid Bakht said that the existing trend in ADP implementation (sluggish in first 11 months and expenditure spree in last one month) was not growth-driven and failed to bring expected benefits in the economy.
The government needs to form a high powered committee to monitor ADP, he said.
According to IMED data, of the total expenditure, the share of government funding was Tk 26,104 crore or 67 per cent and the share of foreign loans and grants was Tk 13,878 crore or 65 per cent.
According to the IMED data, in July–May, the Rural Development and Co-operatives Division achieved the highest implementation rate of 99 per cent followed by civil aviation and tourism ministry with 79 per cent and land ministry with 88 per cent.
On the other hand, Cabinet Division failed to spend any resources allocated to it while foreign affairs ministry spent only 5 per cent of its allocation in 11 months.
The IMED data showed that among the major ministries, the bridges division spent only 30 per cent of its allocation in the first 11 months because of a delay in the Padma Birdge project implementation.
The education ministry spent 49 per cent, water resources ministry spent 53 per cent, the roads division 60 per cent, power division 65 per cent and local government division 83 per cent.
-With New Age input
