Dhaka, June 14 – The main opposition BNP has termed the proposed national budget for fiscal 2019-20 highly ambitious and claimed the people would reject it.
“The people would not accept the budget as it would create pressure on them and increase inequality. The rich will become richer and the poor will become poorer if it’s implemented,’ said BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir while giving his party’s formal reaction to the proposed budget at a press conference at BNP chairperson’s Gulshan office yesterday.
BNP, the arch-rival of the ruling Awami League, gave the formal reaction a day after the Minister for Finance placed Tk 523,190 crore budget in parliament to disclose it formal reaction on it.
Mirza Alamgir said the government has placed the budget as like it conducted the last general elections keeping the people out of it. “The people won‘t accept this budget as they did not accept the elections,” he said.
He asserted that this budget is not pro-people and the people have no interest over the size of the budget as the allocation in every budget is reduced at the end of every year.
“This budget is not pro-people at all. It has protected the interests of a special quarter. Mass people won’t get anything from this budget. Rather it would increase the tax burden to them. It would also increase the discrimination between rich and poor,” he said.
He said despite shortcomings in the collection of revenue this fiscal, the government is pinning its hopes on National Board of Revenue to match a huge revenue target for the next. “The finance minister has set himself on the race of setting big budgets,” he said
The BNP leader said despite the government’s high ambitious to spend money in the budget
Criticizing the slogan of the budget “Time is Ours, Time for Bangladesh,” he said this budget is really for them (Awami League) and only for them and people can easily understand it.
He termed the present government unelected and said that this government has no moral rights to place budget.
“This budget won’t fulfill the people’s hopes and aspirations as it had been formulated against their interests,” he said.
Fakhrul said the middle and lower middle-class people would suffer the most if the budget was implemented as a huge load of VAT had been imposed on them.
He said the middle and lower middle-class people would suffer the most if the budget was implemented as a huge load of VAT had been imposed on them.
BNP standing committee members- Dr Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, Barrister Mouud Ahmed, Mirza Abbas, Dr Moyeen Khan, Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury, among others, were present at the press conference. – Staff Reporter
