Despite Bangladesh's impressive economic progress, it is unfortunate that our social safety net programs continue to fail those who they are supposed to cater to.
While, on the one hand, the government announced an ambitious social insurance scheme that aims to enhance the social safety of factory workers and regular people last year, on the other we have a recent study by the Centre for Policy Dialogue that asserts how a large portion of the money from Government Social Safety Net Programs, particularly for the elderly and widow's allowance, ends up in the wrong hands.
Coupled with the fact that the budget for the fiscal year 2022-23 saw no increases in the allocation for social safety nets, the administration's commitment to this important endeavour comes into question.
According to the CPD study, 3.3 million elderly people and 2.5 million widows are still eligible for benefits but are not receiving them as the money is being pocketed by those who are ineligible for it.
Far from improving the state of our social safety nets, the existing system leaves a lot to be desired if the intended money is finding its way into the wrong hands.
Corruption has long been plague in our administrative services, with funds allocated for endeavours such as relief work often being pocketed by unscrupulous government agents and middlemen. There is very little reason to believe that our social safety net programs are impervious to such malpractice.
To that end, the government and all relevant stakeholders need to investigate how and where such welfare funds are ending up, especially given that the elderly and widow programs are overburdened with ineligible beneficiaries.
A nation's progress is not just charted by the number of high rise buildings or bridges and highways, as how we treat our most vulnerable is far more telling of the state of national development. We have all the mechanisms in place for that, but clearly something is amiss.
