Health ministry unable to spend budget allocation
Wearing mask is essential to curb coronavirus transmission as masks are more effective than imposing restrictions. Whereas the health ministry returns the fund at the end of fiscal year for its inability to spend money, no money was allocated for distribution of masks, even after seeking this from the government. These observations were made at a webinar organised by think tank Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS).
Finance secretary Abdur Rouf Talukder said the government has enough money, but the health ministry cannot spend the funds they are given.
Prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s finance affairs adviser Mashiur Rahman at the discussion said many people talked about the involvement of the health minister with the irregularities in the ministry. But alongside the minister many others also have responsibilities there.
Masks would save now but masks are not the alternative to vaccines, he emphasised.
BIDS director general Binayak Sen moderated the programme that was addressed by Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) chairman Rehman Sobhan and former governor of Bangladesh Bank Atiar Rahman. Mushfiq Mobarak, professor of Economics at Yale University, and Asif Saleh, Brac executive director, presented the keynote paper at the webinar. They presented the results of a survey. Prothom Alo and Daily Star were the media partners of the online seminar.
A joint survey by USA’s Yale University and Brac found that the use of masks has increased up to 42 per cent after distribution of masks and regular supervision. On the other hand, the use of masks is only 13 per cent in areas where there was no supervision after distribution of masks.
The survey was carried out among 300,000 adults of 600 villages, which are hotspots of coronavirus infection, between January and March.
The keynote said maintaining restrictions to curb the infection is very expensive which is close to 10 per cent of GDP.
Asif Saleh said they had to return empty handed even after seeking money from the health ministry to ensure every wore masks in order to face the second wave of Covid-19. He said Brac already has distributed 77 million (7 crore and 70 lakhs) surgical masks among people free of cost. Another 55 million (5 crore and 50 lakhs) masks are necessary, which will require 250 million (25 crore) taka. The health ministry did not give us the money and that’s why we had to seek help from the development partners, he added.
Regarding this finance secretary Abdur Rouf Talukder said 250 million taka is not a big amount. The government has sufficient money. Health and agricultural ministries were given the amount of money they sought. The health ministry cannot spend money given to fight coronavirus infection. The money would return (from the ministry) at the end of the year, he predicted.
The secretary further said, “We’ll give money for masks but the problem is, who will distribute them. It is possible to give people masks free of cost. But the distribution would cost Tk 10.”
In answer to this, professor Mushfiq Mobarak said Brac has microcredit and health programmes around the country. Brac has the required manpower up to the grassroots. They would distribute the masks among people.
Professor Rehman Sobhan said it is true that there is no problem with money. But taking the masks to everyone is challenging. Everyone from the government and non-government organisations have to work together. The accurate figures or corona cases is not available as the number of tests in Bangladesh is among the lowest in the world, he added.
Former governor of Bangladesh Bank Atiar Rahman said the positive result of mask wearing could be seen if we take a look at the apparel sector. Everyone working in the sector is wearing masks. We are seeing that the number of infected people is lower there.