Dhaka – Agriculture Minister Matia Chowdhury criticised on Wednesday Finance Minister AMA Muhith for his proposal to curtail interest rate on savings certificates.
“We want to reduce interest rate on savings certificates, but we don’t know how the dependents on these certificates can live. Won’t we push 10,000 middle-class people towards helplessness with this move?” she said.
Matia voiced her anger in Parliament joining the general discussion on the proposed national budget for 2016-17 fiscal year.
She said 10,000 people depend on earnings from savings certificates. “Among them, there are retired people, women, widows who neither belong to the middle class nor to lower class and don’t get any assistance from the government. Most of them are dependent on earnings from savings certificates. So, the government cannot discourage the sale of savings certificates,” Matia said.
Coming down on the Finance Minister, the Agricultural Minister said there are discriminations between public servants and common people in the case of interest rate on savings certificates.
“In the case of savings certificate, there’re two types of interest rates. The government employees will get higher interest rate, but the common people will get lower interest rate. Why this discrimination? This discrimination should not exist,” Matia said.
She asked the Finance Minister to introduce ‘elderly allowance’ for elderly people among the dependents, if he wants to curtail the interest rate of savings certificates.
Ruling party MPs Abul Hasanat Abdullah, Mahbubul Alam Hanif, HN Ashequr Rahman, Kh Azizul Huq Arzu, Dabirul Islam, Monirul Islam, Kazi Nabil Ahmed, Fazilatun Nesa Bappy and Sabina Akter Tuhin, and Jatiya Party, MP Salahuddin Ahmed Mukti, among others, took part in the discussion.
