Experts find cash aid a good move

The distribution of cash assistance is a timely step, but the identification of the beneficiaries should be done more rigorously, said experts, demanding that the list of the recipients should be made public for transparency and accountability.

The step to address the ordeals of people who have become jobless due to coronavirus shutdown would go off-track if the identification of the beneficiaries is flawed and politically motivated, they said.

On Thursday, prime minister Sheikh Hasina launched the disbursement of Tk 1,250 crore cash support among 50 lakh poor families hit hard because of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The prime minister said that the low-income people, including floating persons, rickshaw and van pullers, day labourers, construction workers, agriculture workers, shop employees, small traders, barbers, (ferry) ghat workers, private business workers, poultry and dairy workers, transport workers and hawkers, became jobless due to the nationwide shutdown over the pandemic.

Each of the 50 lakh identified family heads will be given Tk 2,500 in phases.

Quoting sources, state-owned Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha said that the list had been made by a committee involving district administration, upazila administration, union parishad chairmen and members, teachers and distinguished persons of society.

Commenting on the identification process, former chief economist of World Bank Dhaka Office Zahid Hussain said that the whole process seemed to be a bureaucratic exercise.

Such identification process could not go above doubt, he said.

However, he added, the scope is still there for the government to take the identification process beyond doubt by making public the names and the national IDs of the beneficiaries.

Transparency International executive director Iftekharuzzman said that the lofty purpose of the initiative would be greatly served if the beneficiaries’ NIDs and phone numbers were uploaded and regularly updated for public information and scrutiny.

This would bring many benefits, including enhancing public trust in the government measure to face the crisis, he said.

The government has been facing criticism due to mismanagement in the distribution of relief materials marred especially by rice theft, mostly by ruling party activists.

It was reported that many ration card holders in the Dhaka South City Corporation remained missing and did not appear to buy subsidised food items provided in 40 shops in the area.

Some seven per cent of the 6,720 ration card holders did not turn up to buy 20 kilograms of rice at Tk 10 per kilogram surprising food department officials.

The bizarre absence left them to conclude that some of the ration cards were distributed among people apparently not in need of subsidized food amid the coronavirus outbreak while thousands of people became jobless and were pushed down the poverty line.

Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies research director Binayak Sen calculated that the coronavirus outbreak affecting the livelihoods of the country’s majority population made 24 million new poor — 8 million in urban and 15.5 million in rural areas — and threatened to push up the overall poverty rate to 33.2 per cent from 24.4 per cent.

He said that the expansion of the social safety net programme to arrest the rise in poverty was good but the identification of beneficiaries should be done accurately to have the desired outcome.  

Studies showed that 50 per cent of the beneficiaries of the annual old age and widow allowances were not poor, he pointed out.

The flawed identification was a major reason for the slowdown of the country’s poverty reduction rate to 1.2 per cent between 2010 and 2016 from 1.7 per cent between 2005 and 2010, he said.

Shah Kamal, secretary of the disaster management and relief ministry, told New Age on Friday that the database of 50 lakh beneficiaries was prepared by the Prime Minister’s Office with the help of the ICT Division, the Finance Division and the Disaster Management and Relief Ministry.

It is up to the PMO to make the database public, he said.

But there will be many disadvantages, including the possibility of facing social stigma by the beneficiaries, if the database is made public, he said.

State minister for disaster management Md Enamur Rahman earlier said that the total fund of Tk 1,250 crore would be distributed among 50 lakh families through the mobile financial services — bKash, Rocket, Nagad and SureCash.

From this cash support nearly two crore people will directly benefit as four members on an average have been counted in each of the 50 lakh families, he said.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net