The Cabinet Division has instructed ministries and divisions to be aware of budget celling before taking up projects and be vigilant in the screening process so that they stay within estimates and projections under their budget structures.
Cabinet division has sent instructions to the senior secretaries, secretaries of all the ministries and departments on Monday (September 21) in this regard.
Cabinet division's directives came in the light of the recent revelation of issuing additional expenditure on products of various projects of various ministries, departments and subordinate agencies to balance project cost, which embarrassed the government greatly.
According to the directive, the budgets of the ministries, divisions allocate the required funds for the approval of projects in the corresponding financial year in the 'reserved-for-unlicensed projects' sector and in the projecting fiscal year.
However, different ministries and divisions under their medium-term budget framework are taking up projects beyond the ceiling in the respective fiscal years.
As a result, the allocation of ongoing projects is not in line with the government's revenue, the directive read.
Besides, it is not possible to allocate as per the requirement in all the projects due to non-ceiling development projects.
It is to be noted that bringing the projects beyond estimates and projections is not consistent with the sound financial management of the government.
Therefore, the directive requested ministries and divisions to be aware of six issues.
According to the first directive, ministries and divisions will have to take up projects within their allotted budget for the fiscal year under estimates and projections under their medium-term budget structure.
The second directive read, in the case of investment projects above 50 crore taka, the feasibility of implementation must be verified.
The third directive instructed ministries and divisions to be more careful in project verification and selection so that abnormal market value of any product is not displayed.
Regarding project adopted on G-to-G (Government-to-Government) basis, the directive said arrangements should be made to appoint consultants from of the Government of Bangladesh.
There is a need to be more aware of the issues during project selection/approval, the fifth directive said.
The final directive said, in case of special projects of state and public importance, if additional money is required, the consent of the finance division has to be obtained earlier.
ask/zn
