The review in part targeted multi-year foreign assistance contracts awarded by the USAID, with the vast majority eliminated during its course.

The government is set to fix the size of the development budget at Tk 202,721 crore for 2019-20, up 21.39 percent from the current fiscal year, as it looks to mobilise a higher amount of foreign aid piled up in the pipeline.

Although this year's development budget is deemed to be the most ambitious till date, we are perplexed by the allocation of Tk 1 lakh each to 64 projects, many of which are in advanced stages of completion, and have been so for some time.

We shall invariably see that the Defence Budget will be 'Guillotined' in the evening of June 30 with no discussion on the subject. Military issues have often been shrouded under the cloak of secrecy.