Chittagong Metropolitan BNP convenor Dr. Shahadat Hossain said, ‘There is no direction in the announced budget to overcome the country’s extreme economic crisis. There is no good news for common and poor people. This is an unrealistic, fraudulent, bogus budget.’
He told the media in a post-budget response on Thursday (June 6).
This leader of BNP said, ‘In this budget of the corrupt government without voters, the people’s wealth has been looted. It is not possible to fulfill the dream with such a big deficit budget of 2.5 lakh crore rupees. The sectors from which the budget is being met are challenging. It is an uneven budget.’
Dr. Shahadat said, ‘This budget is a multifaceted challenge budget including financial crisis, debt dependence and deficit under the pressure of inflation and domestic and foreign debt repayment. The main problem in the implementation of the announced budget will be the various pressures to obtain loans from the IMF and the pressure to pay various domestic and foreign debts.
He said, ‘GDP growth, inflation and investment, which have been projected in the budget are not achievable. High inflationary pressure is the biggest challenge for the economy and common people during the extreme economic crisis of the country. There is no effective action in the proposed budget to deal with this pressure.
“The price of daily necessities including electricity and fuel has gone beyond people’s affordability long ago. It is not understandable how the inflation target was announced in the budget without any guidelines for inflation control. If we discuss the macroeconomic indicators like import, export, investment, employment, etc., it is clear that the achievement of growth is purely imaginary. Which is difficult and impossible. The growth targets set in terms of GDP and revenue collection are visibly fraudulent.’
This leader of BNP said, ‘Debt and deficit-based big budget implementation was not possible in the past and will not be possible in the future. An unelected government is not trusted by the taxpayers, as a result of which the regulatory agencies cannot collect the necessary taxes.’
Earlier on Thursday afternoon, the Finance Minister presented a budget proposal of Tk.
AAZ/JH/MS
