In a press conference organized by Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami on Monday, June 10, Secretary General of the organization and former MP Professor Mia Golam Parwar gave a formal response to the proposed budget for the financial year 2024-25 presented to the National Assembly. The press conference was chaired by Advocate Matiur Rahman Akand, Central Executive Council member and Central Publicity and Media Department Secretary, and Assistant Secretary General Maulana Rafiqul Islam Khan, Central Executive Council member and Amir of Dhaka Metropolitan South Mr. Nurul Islam Bulbul, Central Executive Council member were present among others. And Amir of Dhaka Metropolitan North Mr. Md. Salim Uddin and others.
Secretary General and former MP Professor Mia Golam Parwar’s speech to the countrymen is given below:-
“Dear countrymen,
Assalamu Alaikum wa Rahmatullah.
As you know, the current government is not elected by the people. On January 7, this government seized power through farcical dummy elections. The Finance Minister presented a budget of Tk 7 lakh 97 thousand crore in the National Parliament on Thursday, June 6. The reality has nothing to do with the words of hope that the finance minister gave in the budget speech titled ‘Pledge to Build a Happy, Prosperous, Advanced and Smart Bangladesh’ by presenting the data. What he said about Bangladesh as happy and rich is completely imaginary. The people of Bangladesh are living an extremely difficult life due to the intolerable increase in commodity prices, the continuous increase in the price of water and gas and the stock market scandals including bank robberies, money laundering abroad and unbridled government-sponsored corruption. It cannot be called a happy and prosperous Bangladesh.
The budget has provided for increasing the tax burden
in the fiscal year 2024-25. The budget has provided for increasing the tax burden on the common people. Additional tax has been levied on various goods and services which are essential for daily living. Additional tax has been levied on mobile phone calls. Customs duty has been increased on various household items including water purifiers, air conditioners or ACs, refrigerators, which will increase the hardships and sufferings of common people.
Revenue Revenue
The National Board of Revenue has been set a revenue collection target of Tk 4 lakh 95 thousand crore to meet the large expenditure in the proposed budget. To achieve this, 66 thousand crore rupees more than the current revised budget will have to be collected. Economists consider this to be a major challenge. In fact the government’s fiscal policy has become dependent on individuals and groups.
Debt-dependent and contractionary budget will hinder private investment.
The budget has set a target of borrowing Tk 2 lakh 56 thousand crores. It is not possible for the government to implement this huge debt dependent budget. It has been proposed to borrow from the banking sector to meet the budget deficit. If this is implemented, private sector investment will be severely hampered and the currency market will have a major impact. Interest rates may rise abnormally. Further liquidity crunch may emerge. Economists term the proposed budget as a contractionary budget. Budget targets for inflation, tax-GDP ratio and budget deficit to GDP ratio will be difficult to achieve.
There is no strategy for controlling bad debt in the bad debt budget. There is no mention of taking action against loan defaulters and hundi in the proposed budget. According to the calculations made by Bangladesh Bank, the amount of defaulted loans till last March is Tk 1 lakh 82 thousand 925 crore, which is not the actual figure. In fact, the amount of defaulted loans in the banking sector has exceeded Tk 5 lakh crore. In order to reduce defaulted loans, it is necessary to take strict action against defaulters. But he has no direction in the budget. This will further increase the trend of defaulted loans. When Awami League came to power in 2009, defaulted loans were Tk 22 thousand 481 crores. Awami Leel said that law enforcement will continue to recover defaulted loans. In reality, defaults are not being recovered, but are continuing to grow.
The finance minister has set a target of bringing down inflation to 6 and a half percent in the inflation budget. In the post-Budget press conference, he mentioned that inflation will be brought down within 6 months. But inflation has been above 9 percent for 15 months. Experts say that the estimated inflation rate is an average estimate. Inflation will be more than 20 percent if calculated on the basis of commodity basket used by common man. There is no clear direction on controlling inflation and bringing about economic stability. There are some unrealistically ambitious goals.
Opportunity to whiten black money
The budget has given an opportunity to whiten black money by taxing 15 percent. This decision is morally and economically unacceptable. This action of the Finance Minister is discriminatory in terms of social justice.
The maximum tax rate has been fixed at 30 percent in the budget. But black money can be legalized only with a 15 percent tax, a move that has given incentives to tax evaders. On the other hand, regular and honest taxpayers have been scorned. The finance minister said, ‘No government agency will ask any question to those who will take the opportunity to turn black money into white in this year’s budget.’ This move by the government will encourage the corrupt.
In the income limit
budget, the age limit of the individual category was 3.5 lakh taka in the last financial year. This year it has been kept like that. Also, the income tax threshold for high earners has been increased from 25 percent to 30 percent. Which is not acceptable at all. Along with the increase in personal tax, the life expectancy should have been increased. In this case, we think that the life limit should be 4.5 lakh taka.
Education
is the backbone of the nation. There is a multi-faceted conspiracy going on with the education system of Bangladesh, which is 92 percent Muslim. In the proposed budget, there have been huge questions about the allocation in the education sector. Since 2021-22 financial year, allocation to education sector in GDP has been decreasing continuously. Although the total allocation in the education sector has been shown to be higher, a lot of Shubhankar’s evasion has been resorted to. The government wants to show that the allocation for the education sector in the next financial year has been increased by 7.42 percent compared to the current financial year. This allocation is 11.88 percent of the original budget.
Agricultural Sector
Agriculture is the main driving force of the economy of Bangladesh. There is no significant allocation in the proposed budget for agricultural development, expansion and farmers. But 43.89 percent of the laborers are involved in agricultural work. There is no guarantee in the budget that farmers will get a fair price for their produce. There is no direction in the budget to provide benefits to farmers in getting fertilisers, seeds and pesticides.
Industrial Sector Industry
is one of the sectors of the economy of Bangladesh. However, no guidelines have been placed in the budget for the development, development and setting up of new industrial establishments. Already due to various global reasons including covid epidemic, Russia-Ukraine war and lack of dollar, the import of industrial raw materials and machinery has decreased at a massive rate. As a result, new industries are not being established. If incentives were in place in labour-intensive small and medium industries, new industries would have been established and unemployment would have been reduced to some extent. But no incentives for industrial development have been provided in the proposed budget. On the one hand, the state-owned sector industries are closing down one after another with the burden of losses of thousands of crores of rupees. The government could not open the closed jute mills. On the other hand, the textile and apparel industry, the largest sector of export earnings, has been neglected. The proposed budget does not mention any support for the development of the textile and apparel industry. Conversely, the duty on imported men’s and children’s clothing has been reduced. This will affect the domestic industry.
One of the basic human rights is access to medical care. In this case, no real steps have been taken to ensure medical services in the budget. In fact, there is terrible anarchy in the medical sector in the country. Services in government and private hospitals have deteriorated drastically. Imports of medical devices and equipment were available at specialized special duty exemptions. In this case, the import duty rate was 1 percent. In the proposed budget, the Finance Minister has increased the duty of 1 percent to 10 percent on import of more than 200 medical devices and equipment. This can increase the cost of medical care. People will be deprived of medical services.
Bank Management
Banks in Bangladesh have now become factories of robbery. Customers do not trust to keep money in the bank. There is no direction in the budget to prevent the tactic of misappropriation of people’s deposits by special groups in the name of taking loans from banks.
Unemployment
The main problems of Bangladesh are corruption and unemployment. Reducing corruption will accelerate economic growth. Employment will also increase. As a result, unemployment will decrease. Awami League came to power in 2009 and promised to provide door-to-door jobs. But during the 15-year rule of Awami League, house-to-house employment or unemployment did not decrease but increased. According to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, the number of unemployment in 2023 alone is 24 lakh 70 thousand. The terrible picture of unemployment among the educated youth of Bangladesh has emerged in various media.
In many countries, the government provides unemployment benefits to the unemployed until they find employment. The government does not have the will to do something like that in our country. There is no action for the unemployed in this budget.
There is no system to free the country from debt.
Three years ago, the per capita debt of each person in Bangladesh was Tk 1 lakh. At present it stands at 1 lakh 55 thousand taka. That is, in the last three years, the per capita debt of each person has increased by 55 thousand taka. In June 2023, public and private debt was $98.9 billion. In September of the same year, it stood at 100 billion dollars. The interest of which has to be paid every year is 100 million rupees. Economists fear that domestic and foreign debt and its interest will double in the next financial year. In the current fiscal year, 12.4 percent of the budget was allocated for interest payments. It has been increased to 13.5 percent in the revised budget. In the proposed budget, 1 lakh 13 thousand crore rupees have been allocated for domestic and foreign interest payments, which is 14.24 percent of the budget. A large part of the budget has to be spent on loan interest payments. Debt and interest payment liabilities of mega projects will further put pressure on foreign exchange reserves. The supply of dollars may decrease further. As the payment of installments of foreign loans will be hindered due to lack of necessary dollars, the country’s business and trade crisis will intensify. Basically, the budget does not mention any effective measures to make the country debt free.
The budget will not bring any welfare to the people,
the economic indicators of the country are going down. People with limited income are at risk due to inflation. In his budget speech, the finance minister stressed on keeping the macro economy stable, bringing inflation down to 6.5 percent, curbing corruption. But an analysis of his budget speech finds no indication of optimism. There is no certainty as to where the finance minister will come from in terms of expenditure. The finance minister said borrowing from domestic and foreign sources as a source of bridging the deficit of more than Tk 2 lakh crore. The private sector will be at risk if the government borrows more money from the banks. In fact, the budget proposed by the finance minister is just a budget to impose additional taxes on the people. This budget will not bring any welfare to the country and its people.
Dear countrymen,
by analyzing the proposed budget it is evident that this budget is not presented for the welfare of the people. This budget has been presented for the collection of sugarcane by the government and government sponsors. This government has no responsibility towards the people as it was not elected by the people. An elected government is required by the people for the overall economic development of the country by presenting a balanced budget for the welfare and well-being of the people. As long as this government is in power, it will destroy the country’s economy and turn the country into a debt-ridden country. In order to get rid of this situation, a united movement should be formed to establish a people’s government.