Rejaul Karim Byron

The digitalisation of 66 percent of the services offered by six ministries/divisions has saved both time and money of the ordinary people and also ensured service delivery, found a recent study by the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division.

In the end, it was not just lip service. Yesterday, on the first working day of the new fiscal year, the government rolled out a cocktail of austerity measures for its own administration that can conserve about Tk 60,000 crore -- for now.

The long-awaited Tk 727 crore National Household Database that is expected to be delivered later this year will not yield the desired outcome for which the project was implemented, said a recent report of the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division.

The generous tax amnesty campaign proposed by Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal for those with undisclosed assets abroad has been pared back in the face of harsh criticism from all quarters.

As a precautionary move, Bangladesh has started talks with the International Monetary Fund about taking a loan of $4-4.5 billion to shore up the precarious foreign currency reserves.

The government is likely to bring some changes in its budget proposals, including enabling one of its three offers at legalising laundered money to require even lesser tax payments.

In 2012, when the government decided to construct the Padma Bridge using its own resources, many economists feared that Bangladesh’s foreign currency reserves would take a big hit.  

When it comes to high achievement, it is almost always fuelled by high expectations. Going by that thinking, the much-awaited Padma bridge, whose inauguration takes place today, is gearing to be a high achiever when it comes to economic benefits.

Although foreign assistance disbursement is increasing continuously, the country is still behind its target for this fiscal year. 

The wage growth in Bangladesh grew slower than the inflation rate in May, handing a blow to the country’s millions of low-paid skilled and unskilled workers already struggling to make ends meet amid the rising cost of living.

Household loss and damage due to natural disasters saw nearly tenfold increase in 2015-2020 compared to that in 2009-2014, says a report of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.

Inflation surged to an eight-year high of 7.42 per cent in May, driven by a hike in food costs, underscoring the plight a majority of the population in Bangladesh is currently experiencing, official figures showed yesterday.  

Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation made huge profits for seven years through import of petroleum at low prices but the government took that money, leaving the BPC ill-equipped to cope with the current international market volatility.

Funds deposited by Bangladeshi citizens and banks with different Swiss banks witnessed a massive rise of 55 percent to 871 million Swiss francs (CHF), about Tk 8,266 crore, in 2021 compared to the previous year.

The pace of implementation of development schemes of the government hit a three-year high in May of the outgoing fiscal year with Jatiya Sangsad secretariat topping the list while the Finance Division sits at the bottom.

The profits of state-owned enterprises in Bangladesh fell to their lowest in nine years, owing to higher commodity prices in the global market and selling of essentials among the poor and low-income groups at subsidised rates.

Women spend eightfold more time than men in domestic and care work, said a new survey of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.

Abdur Rouf Talukder, the finance secretary, was yesterday announced as the new governor of the central bank, replacing Fazle Kabir, whose six-year tenure ends next month.

Money laundered out of the country can be legalised in exchange of seven to fifteen percent tax under a new proposal aimed to boost revenue as well as mobilise foreign currency. 

The need for expanding the coverage of social protection schemes with new approaches has never been felt so badly than now as people are struggling to keep their heads above water amid one crisis on top of another.