Amid criticisms that the proposed budget for 2018-19 fiscal year is an election-oriented one and unimplementable, Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Friday said it is implementable despite having deficit in financing.
“The new budget is implementable although there’s 5 percent deficit in financing,” he said while addressing a post-budget press conference at the Osmani Memorial Auditorium in the city.
The Finance Minister, however, said all of his budgets were election-oriented ones. “As I’m an important member of a political party, so my budget will be election-oriented one,” he said.
Dismissing the claim of growing income disparity among different classes of people in the country, he said poverty has not increased in any way. “Rather, the poverty rate has been reduced remarkably as the abject poverty has come down to 18 percent now from 30 percent seven years back,” he said.
Muhith lost his temper when some reporters, referring to the statistics and reports of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), drew his attention to the growing income disparity among the people of north and west parts of the country.
He got so furious that he termed the journalists’ claim a ‘serious falsehood’.
The Finance Minister, however, later regretted losing temper.
He said there is no poverty anywhere in the country and the disparity has not increased among different groups.
Muhith also expressed his anger over some newspaper reports on the proposed national budget for 2018-19 fiscal year. “Only those who have zero affection for the country can term it a fake budget,” he said.
Rejecting the notion of promoting the society’s upper class through providing different tax benefits like reduction of corporate tax, the Finance Minister said corporate tax was reduced after a long discussion on the issue.
Defending his stance, he said corporate tax in many countries is below 40 percent.
About the suggestion of forming a bank commission to reform the country’s banking sector, Muhith said the next government will take the decision in this regard.
He said the benefit given to government employees is the highest awarded by any government and now public servants have nothing to demand.
The Finance Minister also ruled out the possibility of any risk over the huge debt burden.
Responding to another query about attaining high growth by a low investment, low tax-GDP ratio and huge unemployment, he said the government has been very successful in creating high GDP growth with a low investment. “We’ve made the investment very efficiently which led to high GDP growth of over 7 percent. This is our success,” he said.
Responding to a query about imposing 5 percent VAT on online trading or e-Commerce, National Board of Revenue (NBR) Chairman Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan said no VAT or tax was imposed and it was a printing mistake in the budget document.
Economic Relations Division Secretary Shafiqur Rahmnan said the country’s foreign loan amount stands at $31 billion which is 13 percent of the GDP against the danger level of 40 percent.
He said the country will receive $6 billion foreign loan this year while it will have to pay only $1 billion.
Shafiqur said per person foreign debt is $198 which is the lowest compared to the global standard.
The press conference was also addressed by Agriculture Minister Matia Chowdhury, Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal, Information Minister Hasanul Haq Innu, Prime Minister’s Economic Affairs Adviser Mashiur Rahman, Energy Adviser Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury and Bangladesh Bank Governor Fazle Kabir.
