BNP says AL govt bluffing people, cannot implement new budget

BNP leader Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain has termed the proposed national budget as an ‘electoral budget’ and claimed the government does not have the capacity to implement it.

Senior Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 7 June 2018, 08:19 PM
Updated : 7 June 2018, 09:03 PM

Another senior leader of the party, Moudud Ahmed, says the budget planned by Finance Minister AMA Muhith is ‘nothing but an empty, blue balloon’

Moudud argued that the budget lacks direction to pull the banking sector out of the ‘ongoing anarchy”.

Muhith presented the Tk 4.65 trillion budget for 2018-19 fiscal year in parliament on Thursday. The figure is an increase of 25 percent from the revised budget and more than 16 percent higher than the original budget of the outgoing fiscal year. 

At a programme in Dhaka later in the evening, BNP Standing Committee Member Mosharraf raised question over the size of the budget.

“The government is neither financially capable nor is it administratively skilled to implement this budget. We think it’s not implementable in any way,” he said.

“It’s a show-off, a budget to bluff the people,” he added.

A former Dhaka University teacher, Mosharraf also said it would not possible to achieve the revenue collection target of over Tk 3.39 trillion.

The budget deficit will be kept at 4.9 percent of the GDP.

“The people will be burdened with the weight of the revenue target to adjust the deficit,” Mosharraf said.

Muhith plans to meet the deficit with loans from foreign and local sources, including banks and savings certificates.

“It’s not a people-oriented budget. It’s based on loans. It will raise per capita debt and badly effect domestic investment and trade,” Mosharraf said.

He claimed the rich will get richer and the poor will become poorer as the budget proposes to raise VAT on readymade garment sector and impose new VAT on online shopping while corporate tax was cut.

Moudud said at another programme: “The proposed budget is a huge balloon, a blue balloon. But it’s empty.

“They have presented a compromising budget ahead of the general election. And it’s a big question whether this government has the right to plan a national budget as 154 members of this parliament were elected uncontested. They don’t represent the people,” he added.