No more honorarium for government meetings

The government has decided to stop all honorariums for meetings of different committees of the government for the fiscal year 2022-23. 

This directive will be applicable for all Project Implementation Committees, Project Steering Committees, Departmental Project Evaluation Committees, Special Project Evaluation Committees, and Departmental Special Project Evaluation Committees for all projects and schemes funded by development funds and self funds of government, semi-government, autonomous, statutory, state-owned company or financial organisations.

The step was taken to reduce government spending in the next fiscal, reads a gazette notification of the finance ministry published on Sunday (3 July).

Even though the government had been advising on belt-tightening in the current period of economic crisis, when it came to the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED) spending, such a notion of austerity appears to have fallen on deaf ears as its secretary received more than Tk50,000 in honorarium per day on his or her "expert" opinion.

This is just one example, officials of various departments get hefty amounts for attending meetings of different projects. Often times they are not even related to the project or collect the remuneration even after missing the meeting. To reduce unnecessary spending the government has taken the decision to slash this expenditure.