Lawmakers blast ‘poor’ allocation for health, edu

Lawmakers from the treasury and opposition benches criticised Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal in parliament yesterday for keeping “insufficient” allocation for education, health and culture sectors in the proposed budget for fiscal 2019-20.

Taking part in a discussion on the budget, they demanded more allocation for the sectors for ensuring quality education, lowering people’s health expenditure and promoting culture.

“You cannot ensure universal health care with allocation of less than one percent of the GDP [gross domestic product] for the health sector,” said Jatiya Party lawmaker Rustum Ali Faraji.

“Out-of-pocket health expenditure [private spending] in Bangladesh is 66 percent. Poor people are suffering,” he added.

The finance minister has proposed allocating Tk 23,383 crore in the pro-posed budget. Compared to the total budget, the share has decreased from the current year’s 5.39 percent to 5 percent.

Faraji also said the allocation for education was insufficient to ensure quality and international-standard education. “You should not term allo-cation for education a waste. Rather, it is an investment for the future,” he added.

The allocation in the sector is only 2 percent, which was much lower than the recommendation from the Unesco, he said. The finance minister has proposed Tk 61,118 crore for education for the next fiscal year.

Faraji said that the banking sector and the share market were going through a bad time and a vested quarter was trying to cash in on the situation through conspiracies.

“The finance minister had earlier promised to tackle loan defaulters with an iron fist, but in reality he has provided ‘discounts’ for loan defaulters in the budget,” he said.

The lawmaker then proposed forming a banking commission to bring dis-cipline to the sector.

Awami League MP Bazlul Haque Haroon demanded inclusion of educa-tional institutions in the Monthly Pay Order scheme under which the gov-ernment pays basic salaries of teachers of non-government institutions.

Actress-turned-lawmaker Suborna Mustafa said cultural activists were “stunned” and “frustrated” at the meagre budgetary allocation for culture in the proposed budget.

The allocation for the cultural affairs ministry is Tk 575 crore, which is 0.10 percent of the total budget. The amount is Tk 50 crore less than that of last year’s revised budget.

Another lawmaker from the ruling party, AKM Sarwar Jahan, proposed taking up a universal pension scheme.

Information Minister Hasan Mahmud said the BNP and the Centre for Pol-icy Dialogue were making similar criticism of budget for the last 10 years. Both said the budgets would not be implemented, he said. 

He also claimed that the media was fully free and expanding in the coun-try. Ten years ago, there were 750 daily newspapers, now the number is 1,350, he said. The number of television channels was 10. It is now 33, he added.