Ministries, divisions spend only 14pc dev budget in first six months of FY23

Staff Reporter :
All ministries and divisions of the government were able to spend only 14.03 percent of the development budget allocation during the first six months of the current financial year.They executed only Tk 36,416 crore against the total allocation worth of Tk 2,59,616 crore for the entire financial year, according to the monthly data on fiscal position from Finance Ministry.
In the same period of the previous fiscal year, the actual out-turn was about 16.97 percent as per the FY22 revised budget. However, the revised ADP budget was Tk 2,21,449 crore and the final implementation rate was 87.81 percent during the entire FY22.
From July- December of the FY23, sectors with large allocation of ADP like health, education, and defense showed a less-than-average performance where the health sector spent only the 6.45 per cent of their allocation and the education sector out-turn was about 9 percent of the allocated development budget.
During the same period, sectors made the highest utilization of allocated resources were transport and communication by 17.47 per cent, LGRD 15.30 percent; HCS sector (Ministry of housing and public works) by 34.06 per cent.
Others sectors like Culture and Religious Affairs spent 35.36 percent of their allocation. Agriculture, Fisheries and Livestock executed 21.56 percent of the budget from July to December .In SSW sector, Ministry of Social welfare spent only Tk 27.63 crore out of Tk 798 core which only12.03 per cent of their allocation.  
A total of 1,496 projects will be implemented under the ADP this year.
Ahsan H Mansur the Executive Director of Policy Research Institute of Bangladesh said to the journalists that, the global economic crisis and the absence of the local financial stability were responsible for the slow growth in the ADP implementation.
Sluggish implementation of the ADP will extend the costs of projects and completion deadline which might add a burden on the government in coming days, he added.
Meanwhile, the national budget for the ongoing fiscal year 2022-23, is worth Tk 6.78 trillion. In the six months of this fiscal year, only 24 per cent of the budget has been implemented. Out of this, actual operating spending up to December, 2022 in this fiscal year is 30.7 percent of the operating budget estimates.