WB expresses satisfaction with public financial management reforms of Bangladesh

A high-level World Bank team has expressed their satisfaction with the significant improvement of the Bangladesh government’s financial reform initiatives.

The team led by Arturo Herrera Gutierre, Global Director, Equitable Growth, Financial Institution (EFI), Global Practice (GP) and Governance Development (GD), and Hoon Sahib Soh, Practice Manager, Macroeconomics, Trade, Investment, and Public Sector, Governance Global Practice, South Asia Region, held a meeting with Finance Division officials in Dhaka on Monday, read a press release.

Md Khairuzzaman Mozumder, Secretary, Finance Division, appraised the mission on ongoing programmes for governance – public sector, financial management and procurement.

Md Abdur Rahman Khan, Additional Secretary, Shirajun Noor Chowdhury, Additional Secretary, Mohammad Saiful Islam, Additional Secretary, and Abu Daiyan Mohammad Ahsanullah, Joint Secretary, were present from the Finance Division and Suraiya Zannath, Lead Government Specialist, World Bank, Robert Yougu, Senior Public Sector Specialist, and Syed Khaled Ahsan, Senior Public Sector Specialist of the World Bank were present among others. 

Abul Basar Md Amir Uddin, Senior Consultant (Joint Secretary), and Tanima Tasmin, Program Executive and Coordinator (Joint Secretary), made presentations at the meeting where it was highlighted that 30,000 drawing and disbursement officers of the government are connected in iBAS++ system and they are now managing their activities online.

Besides, budget forecasting and budget preparations are being accomplished through the system. Thirty million people are getting their social safety net allowance through Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) system from Treasury Single Account (TSA) and the area of iBAS++ is expanding from the budgetary central government to the whole of the government incorporating the State Owned Enterprizes (SOEs), Self-Accounting Entities (SAEs) and Autonomous Bodies (Abs).

In the pension management system, approximately 8.6 lakh pensioners are getting their pension through EFT, and through pension verification apps, they can accomplish their life verification without being present in the accounts office.

Arturo Herrera Gutierre expressed his satisfaction with the significant progress in public financial management (PFM) reforms.

He, however, emphasised the further expansion of iBAS++ network, strengthening the SOE Governance, and expressed his interest in working with the Government of Bangladesh to develop a PFM Reform Strategy.

The World Bank team underscored to implement the new income tax act for domestic resource mobilisation and to enhance the capacity development in IT system implementation in public financial management through iBAS++.