Secretary General of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, Dr. Shafiqur Rahman has issued the following statement on 7th June, 2018 expressing party’s instant reaction about the Tk 4,64,573 crore proposed budget of 2018-19 fiscal year, unveiled by Finance Minister Abul Mal Abdul Muhith in the parliament.

The economists and finance experts think that the proposed budget of TK 4, 63,573 crore will not be materialized. The unveiled budget is impractical, irrational and highly ambitious and it has been declared keeping the upcoming election in focus.

We have been observing in last 9 years tenure of the present government that each and every year, they are declaring a huge budget and in all occasions, they failed miserably to implement the budget due to corruption, irregularities and different other wrongdoings. It is anticipated that the same bad trend is going to be repeated once again.

The economists and political observers think that, the government has unveiled such an ambitious and impractical budget just to influence the general masses ahead of the national election. The government has set a cluster of false hopes for the people just to motivate them as the peoples are highly disturbed and disappointed with the government’s misrule and unbearable repression. The proposed impractical budget of this failed government will intensify that frustration more.

Even before the declaration of the budget, the prices of all essential commodities including rice, lentils, greens and vegetables, fish and meats have increased which has caused deeper crisis for the people particularly for the lower and middle income classes. The inflation rate for this budget has been fixed at 5.6 percent. This mountainous budget will cause further inflation and mass crisis.

The total revenue income in the proposed has been estimated at Tk 3,39,280 crore. Out of this target, NBR will collect Tk 2,96,201 crore. The overall budget deficit will be Tk 1,25,293 crore. Of this, an amount of Tk 54,067 crore will be financed from external sources while an amount of Tk71,226 crore will be financed from domestic sources. Of the domestic sources, Tk 42,029 crore will be borrowed from the banking system while Tk 29,197 crore from National Savings Schemes and other non-bank sources. The tax free income for last couple of years, tax free income limit is 2 lac and 50 thousand taka. But this limit should be increased one lac taka more this time. This budget will pave the way for more corruption and serve the interest of the ruling party men. But it will certainly fail to ensure public welfare.

I am urging the concerned authorities to cancel the impractical and fictitious partition of this budget and also to make it more practical, manageable and implementable.”