Expenses of autonomous bodies need prior approval: Cabinet secy

The cabinet on Monday made it mandatory for the autonomous institutions to take prior approval of the Ministry of Finance before spending any fund for any purposes, said Cabinet secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam. 

The Cabinet has given its final approval to the draft of the ‘Government Employment (Amendment) Act, 2022’, incorporating a string of expenditure approval by the Finance Ministry for committing any expenditure of autonomous, legislative and local government institutions  like 100% public institutions.

A cabinet meeting was held at the Prime Minister’s Office on Monday with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.

After the meeting, outgoing Cabinet secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam briefed reporters on the outcome of the meeting at the secretariat.

He said one thing was not clear in the Government Servant Act passed by the National Parliament in 2018. According to the law, the Ministry of Finance is the authority of financial affairs of the government institutions and the officials and employees of these institutions have to abide by this.

But the finance ministry’s involvement in autonomous and legislative bodies that represent local governments, such as the Anti-Corruption Commission, was not clear. That is why the Ministry of Finance raised this matter. He said most of their expenses are met by public funds. So, there should be an authoritative opinion of the finance ministry regarding the autonomous bodies, too.

Citing Article 84, 85 and 86 of the Bangladesh Constitution, the Cabinet secretary said all the expenses of the state should come under one account and would be spent from one account, too.

“This is what we call treasury. The highest authority of this treasury is the finance division of the finance ministry. Therefore, the finance division should have jurisdiction over the expenditures,” he pointed out.

If a corporation or local government body fixes their own salary structure, it won’t work anymore, until it is approved by the finance division.

He said, in case of any financial matter, clearance should be taken from the finance division. That is why this small but very important amendment has been introduced to the Act, he added.