BNP describes FY2018 budget as a big bluff

Speaking to the media at the party chief's Gulshan offices, BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir called on the government to revise down the 15 percent uniform VAT to a 'tolerable level.'

The party’s official reaction came on Sunday, 10 days after Finance Minister AMA Muhith rolled out a Tk 4 trillion outlay, the biggest in the history of Bangladesh.

Alamgir also demanded withdrawal of excise duty on bank deposits. "We see this budget as nothing but a large-scale hoax. It aims to cheat the people."

The senior BNP leader said it seems to him that the finance minister did not take into account welfare goals in formulating the budget.

He said the country's fiscal management 'might be at risk' due to some of the proposals made by the minister in the new budget.

The cost of big projects has escalated due to the government’s desperate efforts to make its so-called development works visible to people, according to BNP leader Alamgir. “It will lead to a waste of resources and create scope for corruption.”

"The size of Annual Development Programme will be higher by 38.6 percent, compared to the outgoing fiscal year. This jump is unrealistic."

The finance minister's expectations for an 80 percent jump in foreign assistance are far from real, he said

"It seems that those who formulated the budget just came up with numbers.”

"A research body remarked that when it was found the expenditure does not match the source of funds, they assumed all of it will come from foreign sources and just included that figure."

The BNP leader described the target for 7 percent-plus growth for two years as a 'statistical trick'.

"The government is yet to come out of the habit of a statistical gimmick to inflate the growth rate."

On the issue of capital flight, Alamgir citing the recent report by Global Financial Integrity said the illicit outflow of funds in 2014 was about 4 percent of the GDP.

Unfriendly investment climate, political instability and low confidence in the economy sparked the outflow of funds, according to him.

The BNP leader said much of the fund siphoned out of the country was black money made through illegal means.

Alamgir came down hard on the government for the proposed taxes. "Much of the revenue will come from indirect tax, which has been imposed uniformly across all income groups."

He asked the government to revise the income tax rate for the lowest threshold considering inflation and withdrawal of duties on imports of agriculture equipment.

"The budget size has increased but farm subsidies did not."

The BNP secretary general called for the government to cut down the 15 percent VAT, saying it is the highest among South Asian and Southeast Asian countries.