Budget imaginative, reliant on bank borrowings, and looters’ friendly: BNP

Rejecting the next fiscal’s proposed budget outright, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has said that the entire budget is an imaginative, reliant on bank borrowings, and looters’ friendly.

“Awami League government has proposed this budget to legalise their own theft,” said BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir while addressing a press conference at BNP Chairperson’s political office at Gulshan in the capital on Sunday (June 9).

The press conference was convened by BNP to give its formal reactions to the national budget of fiscal 2024-25 proposed by the Finance Minister in parliament on June 6 last.

The BNP Secretary General read out a written statement at the press conference.

He observed that there was no sigh of relief for common people in the budget. “This budget has been prepared by the present looter government for some oligarch who are not only doing business, but are also committing theft. They themselves formulate policies and also run the state machinery.”

Describing the proposed budget as “a brutal joke with the masses,” Fakhrul said the tax burden has been put on the shoulders of people who are already facing unbearable inflationary pressure. The target of inflation in the budget has been set at 6.5 per cent. But, there is no directives on how the government would bring down the inflation. Prices of essential rise in market due to some syndicates who are patronised and supported by the government. There is no directive in the budget on how to control those syndicates.

Mentioning that the proposed budget is a very suitable one for whitening black money, the BNP secretary general said honest and legal taxpayers will feel discouraged and corrupt people will feel encouraged. “It’s totally illegal, unethical, and unconstitutional to give people licenses of indulging in corrupt practices. This step has been proposed in the budget to offer wholesale opportunity to corrupt people like Aziz-Benazir for whitening their black money.This step has been proposed in the budget to give wholesale opportunity to corrupt people like Aziz-Benazir for whitening their black money.”

BNP Standing Committee members Mirza Abbas and Nazrul Islam Khan, and BNP Chairperson’s advisory council member Ismail Zabiullah, among others, were present.