Financing The Vaccination Program

Poor record in project implementation
Worsens trouble of hospitalization.
As banks lie on idle money,
Vaccination does not need foreign penny.

As another wave of COVID-19 spreads across the country, average daily detection reaches more than 5000. Bangladesh imposed a relaxed restriction, which was opposed by petty businessmen and others. Bangladesh started its vaccination campaign from February 08. Development partners and other organizations provided soft credits to finance its vaccination program. Recently, government sought another $500 million from World Bank to finance its ongoing vaccination program (Source:https://abnews24.com/economy/124639).

Bangladesh is one of the few countries that started its vaccination program pretty early. Financial support to vaccination program came in thick and fast. But Bangladesh did pretty bad when it comes to utilization of resources in improving health facilities. In addition, corruption in implementing projects is a major encumbrance in attaining project goals.

Take for instance, installation of centralized oxygen system in key hospitals across the country.A news report says only 38 hospitals got such fully-fledged system among 79 hospitals (Source: Daily Prothom Alo, April 02,2021). UNICEF is implementing installation of oxygen system in 30 such hospitals. The World Bank financed project was delayed as Health Department took a long time clearing the project.UNICEF hopes to implement it by June.

Supplying uninterrupted oxygen to critically ill patients is vital when most of the ICU beds in Dhaka are filled. But delay in decision making cast shadow over its timely implementation.

This delay may not be deliberate but exposes the work culture here. This project is to some extent luckier than others. There are projects where fund has been swindled away without making any real progress in implementation.

A news report says two contractors of Chattogram City Corporation (CCC) swindled Tk 330 million without doing any work (Source: Daily Prothom Alo, April 04,2021). CCC awarded contracts of developing a link road leading to port and construction of a new road near Mohesh canal to two contractors identified as Rana Builders and Rana Builders-Saleh Ahmed. The two contractors took loan from UCB bank and the contract laid out that project payment would be deposited at their bank account. They earlier had taken Tk 80 million and later managed to get a cheque of Tk 250 million from CCC, violating rules of the contract. Project work came to a complete halt since then. They have not furnished any explanation on no progress in the work. The project is being financed by JICA.

Another news report says two newly built public installations --- Postal Building and National Science and Technology Complex ---have not yet been inaugurated in spite of the fact that they were completed two years ago at a cost of Tk 94 crore and Tk 314 crore respectively (Source: Daily Prothom Alo, April 03,2021). Government is counting money in maintaing the two building and their older premises that the occupants are reluctant to vacate in the fear of losing previous real estate and to take the hassle to go to a place far away from the secretariat.

The incidents are eye-opener and lay bare how public money is being wasted in Bangladesh. Meanwhile, Bangladesh is borrowing from abroad to finance mass vaccination. A World Bank estimates show to finance 70% of total population, Bangladesh will need to spend between $1.17 and $1.92 billion (Source: Daily Prothom Alo, April 06,2021).

Bangladesh's economy is in good shape so it can afford borrowing from abroad to vaccinate a large part of its population. But our external debt is also piling up. In 2015 , our external debt was $37.27 billion and debt per head was $236.04. In 2020, external debt rose to $65.27 billion and debt per head was $389.53 (Source: Bangladesh Bank).

Gradual pile up is still not biting us but it is steadily increasing. Fall in export earnings led to widening of trade deficit, which stood at $11.79 billion in 2020-21(July-Feb). Riding on remittances our Forex reserve continues to rise. But our traditional remittance sources are not stable in the face of regional and energy challenges. This pandemic also exposes it when oil price fell below a threshold level. It is a good sign that we are optimistic about our remittance sources. But we do not how long we will remain optimistic about it. So it appears that we are little bothered to take decision on spending between $1.17 and $1.92 billion on vaccination. A remarkable development took place in our banks during pandemic when government allowed legalizing undocumented money. Bank deposits reached Tk 13 trillion. Government could go for domestic borrowing for vaccination program in a bid to ease our external debt. Since we are not honest in spending public money and implementing projects, it is far better to spend from our own resources rather than paying interest and loans over a long stretch of time.