Finance Adviser Dr. Salehuddin Ahmed has expressed doubts over the reliability of the World Bank’s method of assessing poverty in Bangladesh, following the global lender’s recent report indicating a rise in the country’s poverty rate. Speaking to reporters after a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Government Purchase on Tuesday at the Bangladesh Secretariat, Dr. Ahmed said, “I know how they measure poverty. There are bases… there are clientele (to give interviews),” referring to the Bank’s data collection process. He criticised the practice of drawing conclusions from telephone surveys of a small sample, saying, “You take interview over telephone to 5,000 people and make a statement that poverty has increased. I know these.” He also cited an instance where someone had offered to provide 20,000 survey responses in a day through a private firm, implying how easily such data could be manipulated. “These are matters of reliability,” he said.
While challenging the accuracy of the World Bank’s findings, the finance adviser acknowledged that economic challenges do exist in the country. “I don’t deny that. But this percentage has increased or that percentage has increased…” he added, questioning the oversimplification of poverty through numbers. He recalled Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen’s view that extreme poverty can often be recognised simply by a person’s appearance and behaviour, rather than statistics alone.
Regarding the country’s economic condition, Dr. Ahmed said he was in a “comfort zone” in terms of financial stability. When asked about a survey that placed Bangladesh’s inflation rate as the highest in South Asia—including above Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Nepal—he acknowledged that while inflation remains high, progress has been made. “Our base was bad. It was very difficult to bring inflation down, but we still brought it down to 8.0 percent. That’s why we still want to continuously reduce both food and non-food inflation,” he noted.
Dr. Ahmed also confirmed his upcoming visit to Washington to attend the annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), where discussions will focus on ongoing funds in the pipeline, and possibly two agreements may be signed with the World Bank.
During the same meeting, which he chaired, several major import proposals were approved. These included the import of 50,000 tonnes of non-aromatic parboiled rice from India’s M/S Bagadiya Brothers Private Ltd for Tk 2.19 billion at a unit price of $359.77 per tonne. Additionally, the committee approved the import of 220,000 tonnes of wheat from the United States under a government-to-government (G2G) deal at a total cost of Tk 8.25 billion, with each tonne priced at $308. The wheat will be supplied by Agrocorp International Pte Ltd, an authorised firm of US Wheat Associates. Further approvals included the import of 30,000 tonnes of bulk granular urea fertiliser from Saudi Arabia’s SABIC Agri-nutrients Company for Tk 1.59 billion. The Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC) was also authorised to import 120,000 tonnes of DAP fertiliser from Banyan International Trading Ltd, China, for Tk 3.76 billion; 40,000 tonnes of DAP fertiliser from MA’ADEN, Saudi Arabia, for Tk 3.83 billion; and 40,000 tonnes of MOP fertiliser from Canadian Commercial Corporation (CCC) for Tk 1.74 billion.
