The government has started the process for slashing the current budget outlay because of the decline in foreign assistance and stalling of development projects for continuous hartals and blockades.
A senior official of the Finance Division told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday that the ministries and divisions had already started sending proposals on their budget cut.
The official said the Finance Division had called the budget revision meetings 22 days before schedule as the government departments had exhausted their allocations. More funds would be disbursed after revising the budget.
Usually, the meetings for revising the budget are held on January 7-24, but the Finance Division issued a circular, signed by Deputy Secretary Muhammad Walid Hossain, yesterday, convening 70 meetings with 65 ministries and divisions from December 15 to January 19.
The Finance Division official said the amount of the budget cut would be determined at those meetings.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Sunday said the development budget needed slashing in the current fiscal year as the inflow of foreign loans and aids was dropping sharply.
“The inflow of foreign assistance has come down because of the continuous blockades, which will require us to cut the current fiscal budget,” he said.
The finance minister said the economic activities, including development work, had come to a halt. “You cannot ask a man to come and join work. He might be hit by a bullet or might be burnt. The situation is similar to that in 1971.”
At the request of the then Pakistan government a World Bank mission had visited Bangladesh and submitted a report to the headquarters on the situation prevailing, said Muhith, who was a public servant during the Liberation War.
Quoting the report, Muhith said the mission had found deserted cities and a feeling of fear among people with no economic activities. Based on the report, the US government had stopped aid to Bangladesh.
Economic Relations Division data shows that the inflow of foreign funds to Bangladesh dropped by 29% to $576.80m during July-October owing to the political impasse.
During the same period last year, donors working in Bangladesh had disbursed $809.60m foreign assistance, said the ERD figures released last week.
The ERD said commitment of foreign funds from multilateral and bilateral donors had also dipped by 25% to $1.33bn in July-October from $1.77bn one year earlier.
According to the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division, the implementation progress of the Annual Development Programme (ADP), except for the self-financed projects, in the first four months of the current fiscal year was 15% compared to 20% during the same period in 2012-13.
