Rejaul Karim Byron

In a first for Bangladesh, the country has extended a lifeline of sorts to the beleaguered Sri Lankan economy, offering to top up the island nation’s depleting foreign reserves by as much as $500 million.

The cottage, micro, small and medium enterprises, who were among the worst hit for the pandemic, appears to have started seeing the stimulus funds of late after initial reluctance from banks in disbursing credit to the sector.

Making hay while the sun, it appears, is the finance ministry’s mantra as it goes about preparing the budget for fiscal 2021-22, its second in the backdrop of the extraordinary challenges thrown by the pandemic.

The government will continue to offer the scope for legalising undisclosed money in the upcoming budget, Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said yesterday.

It may take four to 12 years to complete 1,426 ongoing development projects because of slow implementation and meagre allocation, highlighting the need for the government to prioritise works and accelerate execution to avoid cost and time overruns.

The government, for the first time, has moved to define habitual defaulters, a development that may stop delinquent borrowers from running businesses, travelling abroad, and participating in social and political activities.

The government will allocate Tk 47,283 crore to 12 mega projects, including those on the fast-track list, from the development budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

Despite giving special focus on the health sector, the government could implement only 26 per cent of the sector’s Annual Development Programme in the first 10 months of the current fiscal year.

The government could not spend two-thirds of its around Tk 25,000 crore cash-food support packages for the poor and vulnerable, frontline health workers and low-income farmers in the last year after its announcement.

Rapid coronavirus vaccination, upgrading the creaking health system and expanding social protection should be the focus of the upcoming budget to bring the crisis under control, economists said.

Keeping in mind the possible impacts of the second Covid-19 wave, the government is going to attach top priority to vaccination, economic recovery, and life and livelihood of the poor in the upcoming national budget.

The budgetary allocation meant for the poor and vulnerable is set to go past Tk 1 lakh crore mark for the first time as the government sets aside additional funds to support the needy during the coronavirus-induced income collapse.

The government may allocate Tk 225,324 crore to implement development projects in the next fiscal year, which is 14 per cent higher than that in the revised budget.

The government may keep its tax collection target unchanged for the National Board of Revenue in the next fiscal year because of the devastating effect of the coronavirus pandemic on the economy.

Undisclosed assets worth a staggering Tk 14,295 crore have been legalised in the first nine months of this fiscal year.

The government approved a proposal to extend the deadline for the much-talked-about Padma bridge project to June 23, 2022.

The government will again extend the period of a project taken to set up a modern healthcare facility at the capital Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) after the project authorities failed to complete the work on schedule mainly due to the pandemic.

The government may increase its allocation for incentive expenses for remittance in the next fiscal year as it looks to retain the surge of the flow of the cheapest source of foreign currencies for Bangladesh.

The government plans to set an ambitious target of using foreign aid worth Tk 88,024 crore for development projects in the next fiscal year as external assistance has piled up.

The government faces a challenge in reaching the target population in need of financial assistance amid the Covid pandemic in the absence of a comprehensive database of poor people.