Bangladesh's economy and development potential are caught in a trap of inefficiency, said Power and Participation Research Center (PPRC) Executive Chairman Dr Hossain Zillur Rahman.
"This trap is our own. It was not imposed by outsiders,” he said while speaking at the event titled "CPD Budget Dialogue 2024" at a hotel in the capital on Wednesday (12 June).
“Investment decisions in education and health in Bangladesh are not coming from integrated thinking, infrastructure and services are not being coordinated,” he added.
Dr Hossain Zillur Rahman said a large part of the allocation in education is going to the infrastructure sector.
He also said the government's funds are being wasted due to inefficiency in project selection, adding, “Many projects are being abandoned midway. This inefficiency is equivalent to an epidemic”.
The economist also said many ministries take large allocations at the beginning of the year and return the allocations at the end of the year due to inefficiencies in implementation.
He urged to address the problems of implementation efficiency, governance and development strategy to ensure freedom from such inefficiency trap.
Commenting that the country has been moving forward based on the garment industry and remittances for the last 4-5 decades, he said, new growth drivers should be searched for the future.
Urging the improvement of the investment environment to sustain growth, he said, entrepreneurs need a sound business environment more than credit facilities.
“Bureaucratic complexity is still a major obstacle to business. Although 100 Special Economic Zones were said to have been in line, only 4-5 have been launched,” he added.
Stating that the solution to all these problems is not in economics, he said that such problems should be solved through political economy.
“The terrible triangle of lack of accountability, lack of strategic skills and overall institutionalisation of corruption should be broken,” he further said.
