The absence of timely disclosure of fiscal data is constraining delivery of the national budget and depriving the marginalized citizens in Bangladesh of receiving the required government support, says the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD).
Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya, distinguished fellow of the think tank, said fiscal data has a critical role not only from the perspectives of accountability and transparency for the development process, but also for policy-making.
The prevailing dearth of timely delivery of quality fiscal data as per the demand may have emerged from several sources, including lack of awareness, capacity, urgency for sustainability, and absence of procedure and application, the economist further said on Thursday at a dialogue titled Challenges of Improving Fiscal Data for Policymaking in Bangladesh.
The dialogue was organized by CPD in partnership with The Asia Foundation – Bangladesh.
Bhattacharya added that a political stimulus would be required to bring positive changes to this end.
According to CPD, the Ministry of Finance must take the lead to ensure better delivery of fiscal data to aid budgetary decisions. The producers of fiscal data, particularly the ministry, appear to be quite content with the present status quo of fiscal data.
While presenting the keynote presentation based on a recent study conducted by the CPD research team, Towfiqul Islam Khan, senior research fellow of CPD, urged reporting actual expenditure on social protection and subsidies, monthly reporting of transfers, as well as project-wise ADP expenditure.
Timely disclosure of accurate fiscal data can only improve the implementation of budget and attainment of the national development objectives, he said.
"Therefore, improvement in the area of fiscal data would require considerable political will and a change in the mindset of core actors," Khan added.
The economist also said the government should take an initiative to develop a comprehensive database that will provide long term data series in excel or any other easily reproducible format.
"There is a need for a big push from the demand side, particularly on the part of policymakers including the elected public representatives, which at present is led by data analysts. Non-state actors, i.e., CSOs and media need to maintain their demand at the same time," he noted.
The CPD study found that due to a lack of availability of timely fiscal data, the government may be unable to adequately utilize the available fiscal space.
As a result, the government may be forced to pursue a relatively conservative attitude in extending budgetary allocations for cash transfer and subsidy to combat the Covid-19 pandemic and rising commodity prices.
Four fundamental dimensions of fiscal data
The presentation focused on four fundamental dimensions of fiscal data — availability, accessibility, agility (promptness), and accuracy.
In terms of “availability”, the major concerns begin with the absence of several key fiscal indicators, followed by inadequate levels of disaggregation.
The degree of “access” becomes limited when certain documents are not available on public domains or are provided in a non-user-friendly manner.
In the case of “agility”, the persistent issue remains to be the timeliness of reporting.
Finally, the major concern regarding the “accuracy” of fiscal data continues to be the inconsistency amongst the data provided by national data suppliers.
‘Only data-driven decisions can make policymaking transparent’
Vice Principal Dr Md Abdus Shahid, member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Accounts, said that only data driven decisions can make policy making more transparent.
“The government is carrying out many activities, but often they are not reflected in data,” he noted.
CPD Chairman Prof Rehman Sobhan, while sharing special remarks at the dialogue, hypothesized that the quality of data would be maintained if the generated data is derived from the needs of the primary data users, i.e., policymakers.
However, the majority of demand for change in data quality comes from outside the government, which is a critical weakness as the driver of change should be from within the government.
“The issues and challenges are not about fiscal data but rather about statistical data,” said Saber Hossain Chowdhury, chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and also a member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Ministry of Planning.
He also added that data revolution is a key prerequisite for achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs).
Data accessibility and transparency have always been lacking from the government end.
“The data producers either do not want to share or don’t have a systematic way of data collection. As elected representatives of the citizens, the MPs need to have access and take cognisance of data so that they can provide more useful and precise opinions and solutions,” Hossain also said.
Kazi Nabil Ahmed, member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Ministry of Finance, mentioned that over the last two years of the pandemic, the main priority of the national budget had been the health sector.
Data on the vaccination process has been collected at the upazila level from district health offices and disseminated every three months.
“However, we don’t have a complete breakdown for cross-analysis. The government’s main strength is the people, and the people should be able to assist in generating data,” he said.
Data not reflecting real picture
Shameem Haider Patwary, member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, said the story told by data is often not reflective of the actual scenario.
“More focus should be put on achievement-based indicators. There is also an acceptability issue regarding data amongst politicians. Data related issues cannot be solved without acceptability,” he said.
He suggested that think tanks such as CPD train members of the parliament in data studies for crucial matters, such as budget formulation.
Dr Zahid Hussain, former lead economist at the World Bank, was present as a distinguished discussant at the dialogue.
He mentioned that data regarding state-owned enterprises is crucial and reformation is needed in this regard.
“Moving forward will include providing a calendar for data release as well as for data revision, especially given that data discrepancy is unavoidable. Moreover, providing reports in a PDF format is akin to still maintaining a paper-based system. Therefore, we need to utilize an excel based platform to make data not just available but user friendly,” he said.
Speaking about data revisions, Ranjit Kumar Chakraborty, former additional secretary at the Finance Ministry, said when a fiscal year closes, the bottom-line data should be unchanged, while there may be some adjustments within three months.
“The reasons for the discrepancy in data, such as between NBR and CGA [Office of the Controller General of Accounts], may be a result of when a tax payment is made via pay order; this will show up for NBR as a receipt but not for the CGA because the tax payment has not been encashed,” he explained.
Kazi Faisal Bin Seraj, country representative of The Asia Foundation, said during his introductory remarks that it has become increasingly important to look at Bangladesh’s growth and the efficiency of the growth.
“This is where data plays a major role. In terms of accountability, if data is made available and the accounting is right, then the lending rate may potentially come down. We may even be able to reduce our dependence on foreign funds and even domestic borrowing,” he added.
