Finance Minister AMA Muhith yesterday said corruption swallows 2 to 3% of the country’s total GDP (gross domestic product) while political unrest 1%.
“So, corruption and political unrest impede the economic growth of the country,” said the minister while delivering his speech at a meeting with development partners at the NEC yesterday.
According to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, the country’s GDP size is more than Tk15tn. The finance minister’s estimate means that Bangladesh is losing Tk450bn yearly due to corruption and Tk150bn for political unrest.
The finance minister recently came up with his strong voice against corruption as in the parliament a few weeks back he said the government failed to take action against the Hallmark loan scamsters because of opposition from the ruling Awami League.
In sharp contrast, Muhith in 2012 was strongly criticised for his comment that the Hallmark loan scam was not a big deal as the amount is only 10% of the total credit disbursement of the year.
Hallmark borrowed Tk35bn from Sonali Bank providing fake documents between 2010 and 2012 – the biggest ever credit scandal in the country that rocked the financial market.
The AL-led alliance government’s immediate past 5-year tenure was marked by number of scandals like stock market, Padma bridge project, Destiny Group, Bismillah Group, Unipay– 2, railway recruitment business, VOIP (Voice Over Internal Protocol), swindling of public money from banks like BASIC and latest wheat scandal.
Speaking at the event, the finance minister said the government had laid emphasis on e-commerce development through which corruption might be reduced.
He expressed disappointment over the rising income disparity among the people despite the fact that the country is under the world’s best social safety net programme. The country spends more than 1% of GDP on social safety net programmes.
He termed the 1.87 crore job creation scheme in the seventh five-year plan ambitious which will be difficult for the government to implement.
“Unemployment rate in the country is much higher than the estimate,” he said.
According to BBS survey in 2010, the country’s number of unemployment is 19.51 lakh out of over 3.4 lakh educated youth.
The finance minister also came down heavily on the country’s education quality saying that though primary education quality is satisfactory, it is not good in the secondary and higher secondary level.
The projected economic growth in the seventh five-year plan to be implemented from the new financial year is more than 8% and the poverty rate is planned to cut down to 18% from the current over 24%.
To achieve this, Bangladesh needs Tk31.9tn (3,19,000 crore) in investment to implement the upcoming FYP by 2020.
About Tk28.85tn or 90.4% of the total investment was projected to come from domestic sources and Tk3.05tn or 9.6% from external sources. To woo donors, including World Bank, European Union and DFID, for funding the seventh five-year plan, the government held a meeting with them on the day.
The development partners were informed in details about the salient features of the upcoming seventh five-year plan. Member of the Planning Commission Professor Dr Shamsul Alam provided a sector-wise detailed overview of the upcoming plan at the meeting.
The donors recommended improving the quality of project implementation at lower cost. The recommendations include ensuring transparency and accountability in fund management, taking policy in democratic way and land reformation.
