Dhaka, Aug 23 – BNP on Sunday alleged that the government has emptied the national exchequer and bankrupted the country’s economy to meet the budget deficit.“The government has bankrupted the country economically. It borrowed Tk 11,000 crore from the banking system in the last 43 days of the current fiscal year to meet the budget deficit. It’s manifested the exchequer has become depleted,” said BNP senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi.
Speaking at a virtual press conference from BNP’s Nayapaltan central office, he also said the country’s economy is now in a bad shape as the remittance flow has come down while revenue collection declined sharply.
The BNP leader alleged that the ruling party leaders, including the grassroots ones, are plundering thousands of crores of taka in the name of ‘so-called’ development and mega projects and siphoning off the money abroad. “Newspapers are every day publishing news with the photographs of ruling party leaders who siphoned off money abroad.”
Referring to the recent arrest of Faridpur Chhatra League president Nishan Mahmud Shamim on the charge of siphoning off Tk 2,000 crore, he said the stories of money laundering by the Awami League leaders have outshined that of Arabic novels.
“If district-level student leaders are involved in the siphoning off thousands of crores of taka abroad, it remains to be seen how much money of the national-level ruling party leaders are floating in the sea,” Rizvi observed.
He said the government has now become unnerved as the shocking information about the plundering of public money by Awami League leaders and activists are getting exposed.
He alleged that the ruling party leaders have now launched ‘false’ campaigns against BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia and her son Tarique Rahman as part of their efforts to hide their misdeeds.
Reacting to the ruling party leaders’ comment that then Prime Minister Khaleda Zia is responsible for August-21 grenade attack, Rizvi said, “We can say current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is responsible for the carnage at BDR’s Pilkhana headquarters in 2009 as head of the government.” – UNB
