ACCORDING to a study by the Bangladesh Bank, the use of remittances in non-productive sectors is very high causing anxiety among financial experts who are worried that it is not better utilized. They held the view that the government must be blamed in the first place for failing to lure the receivers of remittances from their expatriate family members to put the money to useful saving schemes and such other remunerative or productive expenditures instead of spending on speculative business or self promotion activities to fetch social attention. We share the anxiety of the experts and their observations but reaching out to rural people who are receiving expatriate remittances or bringing changes to their spending outlook is a real difficult task. Yet it must be started, we believe by creating public awareness supported by attractive saving schemes and ways of productive investment so that the money can bear fruits. The study report published in local English dailies said 1.6 percent of the households spent surplus remittances on purchases of land and flats, 49.3 percent spent on renovation of homesteads, 4.5 percent spent on purchase of vehicles and 0.7 percent spent on credit business. Mentionable is that the high volume of remittances over the recent years has made our foreign reserve position quite healthy but the quality of expenditure is yet much to be desired. A bigger part of it is also used to pay import bills of non-existent imports thus facilitating money laundering and capital flight. It all suggests the overall failure of proper remittance management at the private and public level. Meanwhile remittances showed a downward trend last year falling by 3.0 percent to $13.83 billion in 2013 from $14.17 billion in 2012 .This is because of the drastic fall in the number of migrant workers to important employment destinations like the Middle East. It also suggests that there is hardly any room to allow the misuse of remittances in non-productive or less remunerative spending, least of all to allow it to be used in luxury. Another expenditure pattern disclosed by the study showed 20.45 percent of remittances are used on food and cloths, 11.24 percent on agricultural land purchase, 15.02 percent on home construction and repair, 10.55 percent on repayment of loans which was used earlier on migration, 9.07 percent on social ceremonies. Moreover, 7.19 percent is used to send new family members abroad and finally 4.76 percent is used on investment with only 3.07 percent being put to savings. The study report said most remittance beneficiaries prefer to invest in businesses which often turn out to be highly speculative because they don’t know the presence of several saving schemes designed for them such as Non-resident foreign currency deposits (NFCD), Wage Earners Development Bond and Non Resident Investors Taka-Account (NITA). So only two major choices are open to them-either to buy land at spiraling costs or spend to live a luxurious life. We believe that the Bangladesh Bank disclosure should act as the eye opener to our policy makers to take up various awareness campaigns to reach the people to bring change in their spending outlook. The nation can’t afford to misuse – be it at the private level.
