Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami’s Secretary General and former lawmaker Professor Mia Golam Porwar has issued the following statement on 3 June 2021 reacting to the highly ambitious Tk603,681 crore budget which has been placed in the parliament today by the finance minister for 2021-22 fiscal year.
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal has placed TK604, 681 crore budget in the parliament with huge amount of deficit. The title of the budget proposal fixed as ‘Bangladesh towards a resilient future protecting lives and livelihoods’. It was said from the gover¬nment level that this budget would give more emphasis on lives, livelihood along with health protection, creating employment opportunities and expanding social safety net. But practically, the budget has no consistency with its theme.
The budget targets 7.2% economic growth while budget deficit will cover 6.2 percent of the total GDP. The proposed budget is far away from reality and completely imaginable. There are huge gap between the income and the amount of expenditure. The government even could not implement the major part of the budget of previous fiscal year. In the proposed budget, ADP has been fixed to 2 lac 25 thousand and 324 crore taka. Income would come from the revenue sector with a tentative amount of 3 lac 89 thousand crore taka. Last year, NBR was assigned to collect the revenue of 3 lac 30 thousand crore taka. But as it was seemingly unrealistic, so in the later period the target was reduced to 3 lac one thousand crore taka. But in 10 months of the previous fiscal year, only one lac 97 thousand 583 crore taka of revenue has been collected which far less than the target amount. The rest of the amount can never be collected in just two months.
The budget speculated 98 thousand crore taka as foreign grant which is more than the previous budget. To meet the deficiency, 76 thousand 452 crore taka was supposed to take as bank loan. 2 lac and 14 thousand 681 crore taka has been set as deficiency. One third of the total budget depends on loan. The government has to suffer to manage such huge loan. Due to financial recession, the government could not collect loan from the bank as they had planned. This time they have again intended to take money from banks which would ultimately put the banking sector into a major crisis. The government did not obtain the GDP target as they had finalized in last fiscal year. Later, it was readjusted to 5.3 percent. The Finance Minister’s hope for this fiscal year is also not consistent to the existing realities.
The entire nation is suffering massively due to covid-19 pandemic. People are being infected and killed every day. People are running from a hospital to another but finally expires without getting treatment. Amid this vulnerable condition of the health sector, the government allocated 32 thousand 731 crore taka for the health sector which 7.4 percent of the total budget. The health sector is crying for modern equipment and machineries. We are of the view that, allocation for the health sector should be kept as 10 percent of the total budget. Besides, only 26 percent of the previous health budget was implemented. So, only allocation is not enough. Adequate measures should be taken to implement the budget program as well.
Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami’s Secretary General and former lawmaker Professor Mia Golam Porwar has issued the following statement on 3 June 2021 reacting to the highly ambitious Tk603,681 crore budget which has been placed in the parliament today by the finance minister for 2021-22 fiscal year.
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal has placed TK604, 681 crore budget in the parliament with huge amount of deficit. The title of the budget proposal fixed as ‘Bangladesh towards a resilient future protecting lives and livelihoods’. It was said from the gover¬nment level that this budget would give more emphasis on lives, livelihood along with health protection, creating employment opportunities and expanding social safety net. But practically, the budget has no consistency with its theme.
The budget targets 7.2% economic growth while budget deficit will cover 6.2 percent of the total GDP. The proposed budget is far away from reality and completely imaginable. There are huge gap between the income and the amount of expenditure. The government even could not implement the major part of the budget of previous fiscal year. In the proposed budget, ADP has been fixed to 2 lac 25 thousand and 324 crore taka. Income would come from the revenue sector with a tentative amount of 3 lac 89 thousand crore taka. Last year, NBR was assigned to collect the revenue of 3 lac 30 thousand crore taka. But as it was seemingly unrealistic, so in the later period the target was reduced to 3 lac one thousand crore taka. But in 10 months of the previous fiscal year, only one lac 97 thousand 583 crore taka of revenue has been collected which far less than the target amount. The rest of the amount can never be collected in just two months.
The budget speculated 98 thousand crore taka as foreign grant which is more than the previous budget. To meet the deficiency, 76 thousand 452 crore taka was supposed to take as bank loan. 2 lac and 14 thousand 681 crore taka has been set as deficiency. One third of the total budget depends on loan. The government has to suffer to manage such huge loan. Due to financial recession, the government could not collect loan from the bank as they had planned. This time they have again intended to take money from banks which would ultimately put the banking sector into a major crisis. The government did not obtain the GDP target as they had finalized in last fiscal year. Later, it was readjusted to 5.3 percent. The Finance Minister’s hope for this fiscal year is also not consistent to the existing realities.
The entire nation is suffering massively due to covid-19 pandemic. People are being infected and killed every day. People are running from a hospital to another but finally expires without getting treatment. Amid this vulnerable condition of the health sector, the government allocated 32 thousand 731 crore taka for the health sector which 7.4 percent of the total budget. The health sector is crying for modern equipment and machineries. We are of the view that, allocation for the health sector should be kept as 10 percent of the total budget. Besides, only 26 percent of the previous health budget was implemented. So, only allocation is not enough. Adequate measures should be taken to implement the budget program as well.
Because of the pandemic situation, academic institutions have been remaining closed for last 14 months. The students are being deprived from their right to study. The nation is moving towards ignorance. There are lacking of significant research work at the University levels. The proposed budget also failed to address this issue. Though the proposed budget verbally put stress on alleviating poverty, creating employment and expanding social safety net, bur practically there is no outline of such programs. The proposed budget allocated 31 thousand 911 crore taka for the agricultural sector. Agriculture is the main strength of national economy. But the farmers never get their due prices of the produced crops. The proposed budget did not say anything specific to reduce the price of the raw materials. Other relevant issues like reducing the price of chemical fertilizers, or ensuring due price for the farmers has been ignored as well.
Bangladesh’s industrial sector played an important role. Huge number of people are involved with SME sector but their issues did not get due importance in the proposed budget. A special fund was created in last year of 10 thousand crore to tackle corona crisis. Such a fund has been proposed for the upcoming fiscal year. But there no directives in the budget about expending this money. What has happened with the corona fund is unfortunate. Even, some people had to be imprisoned for money embezzlement. Besides, a crisis has been created with the collection and distribution process of corona vaccines. We think, more transparency should be ensured in this procedures.
Huge number of expatriates have been forced to come back in the country due to worldwide pandemic. They are leading a miserable life. Although, there is no specific recommendations for them. The allocation which has been kept for tackling the natural disaster is not sufficient. The proposed budget did not mention anything for the disaster victims of the South and South-Western region of the country. Lots of roads, bridges and culverts and embankments have been destroyed in these calamities but there is no declaration in the budget to repair these establishments.
The budget kept a scope of whitening the black money which would inspire the corrupt personnel. Actually, this provision is being continued to give extra facilities to the ruling party men. We think, who have managed to skip due revenue, they should come under strict action of the Anti-Corruption Commission.
Bangladesh is a Muslin country, but here tax has been fixed on the money of Zakat. It should be annulled. Labor section plays an important role in country’s development. There should be allocation for the labors to ensure their good health, accommodation and health insurance. In word, good governance, transparency and accountabilities should be ensured at all levels to recover the economy which has been widely damaged due to corona virus situation.
