Govt to focus on people, not megaprojects: Saki

State Minister for Planning Zonayed Saki on Saturday said the government has no intention of pursuing mega projects simply to create an impression of development or to facilitate large-scale corruption.

Speaking at a Shadow Parliament debate competition organised by Debate for Democracy at the Bangladesh Film Development Corporation in Tejgaon, he said the government had adopted a cautious approach to large infrastructure schemes in light of past experience.

“By just taking up mega projects to make people astonished and create an illusion of development, this government has no interest in mega loot from those projects. Our Finance and Planning Minister has said that many projects undertaken during the previous government’s tenure have become a burden,” he said.

The debate was held on the motion: “Implementation efficiency is more important than financing to reap the benefits of the national budget.”

Saki said the government's priority was to develop human resources rather than undertake large infrastructure projects. He said investment in transport and communication infrastructure would be pursued where it was necessary to support production and expand productive sectors.

He also stressed the need for continuity in government, saying that abandoning all projects started by a previous administration would create economic difficulties.

“We are moving towards completing projects through rationalisation and also planning how projects with limited physical progress can be integrated with new projects or, in some cases, merged with others. As a result, a major restructuring of the projects is also underway,” he said.

The state minister expressed confidence that the National Board of Revenue would collect more than Tk 4 lakh crore during the current fiscal year. He attributed the optimism to what he described as greater dynamism in the revenue authority's activities over the past four months.

He said the government planned to introduce several new initiatives in the coming months and expected them to generate an additional Tk 2 lakh crore in revenue in the next fiscal year if implemented successfully.

Addressing the country's debt burden, Saki said the government could not immediately break out of the cycle because it continued to pay interest on loans taken by the previous administration.

He noted that budget deficits and borrowing were not new for Bangladesh and said several development projects launched in 2012 were still under way, leaving the present government responsible for completing them.

However, he said the government was gradually working to reduce its reliance on borrowing by increasing revenue collection and strengthening the country's economic capacity.