The capacity building of the National Pension Authority under a proposed programme worth $325 million is likely to drop amid scarcity of dollars.
Finance ministry officials said the negotiation over a $250 million loan from the Asian Development Bank for implementing the programme had been stalled following changes in regime.
On August 8, the interim government headed by Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus assumed power after a month-long mass protest toppled the Awami Legaue government.
Resuming the loan negotiation with the ADB required fresh policy decision from the interim government, said NPA member Golam Mostafa.
But the policymakers of the interim government showed lukewarm response to the programme because of a condition for providing $75 million to the programme from the local sources, said finance ministry officials said.
Planning adviser Wahiduddin Mahmud has already asked the authority concern to scan projects in pipeline to drop the unnecessary and politically motivated projects.
He also directed to stop taking foreign loan for the non-viable projects due to growing debt payment amid the ongoing shortage of dollars.聽聽聽聽聽聽聽
The forex reserves hovers around $20 billion from $48 billion in August 2021.
ERD has projected overall debt payment at Tk聽57,800 crore in FY25 against Tk聽37,775 crore in the outgoing FY24.
It attributed loan taking spree by the Hasina regime which increased the overall government external debt almost fourfold to $79 billion until March 2024 from $21.44 billion in 2009-10.
Golam Mostafa said ongoing other programe of the NPA would continue despite uncertainty in availability of the ADB loan for the three-and-a-half-year programme.
The Hasina government moved towards the contributory pension policy from the non-contributory one to offset the growing burden of pension allocations on the national budget.
Within a period of just 11 years, the allocations for pension and gratuity benefits in the national budget more than tripled 鈥� for FY25 Tk 39,419 crore has been projected that was Tk 11,913 crore in FY14 鈥� mounting pressure on fiscal management by the Finance Division.
In its contributory pension initiative, the government has introduced four instruments 鈥� Probash, Pragati, Surokkha, and Samata 鈥� for citizens aged between 18 years and 50 years in August 2023.
Under the initiative, the scheme holders have been projected to receive monthly pension benefits at different rates from the retirement age of 60 years based on their monthly contribution.
The new pension programme, however, drew criticism from the economists who said that the programme did not have comprehensive investment plans for the money in profitable ventures.
In the past month, the NPA cancelled a decision to include 403 public autonomous, semi-autonomous and statutory bodies in the newly designed pension instrument Prattay because of protests by university teachers.
The NPA officials said the number of clients of Prattay reach around 3.7 lakh at the end of July from Tk 3.5 lakh May.
