Staff Reporter :
BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir has termed the proposed budget for 2022-23 financial year as cluster of fairy tales.
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal presented the Tk6.78 lakh crore national budget for FY23 at Jatiya Sangsad.
“We’ve talked about the budget in the past, but this time we don’t want to respond. Which budget will we respond to? Whose budget? Who is presentor this budget? Those who are not representatives of the people and have no right to give a budget and they just prepared all the budgets only for looting,” he said while addressing at a council meeting of Dhaka Metropolitan North BNP in the city’s Kafrul on Thursday.
Mirza Fakhrul said that they have made an account of how they will loot more.
“They have given a budget of Tk 6.70 lakh crores … just an estimate of how much money they will be looted from there..” the BNP’s Secretary General added.
Meanwhile, BNP Standing Committee Member Dr Abdul Moyeen Khan has said that the proposed national budget for FY2022-23 is completely “unrealistic” and will serve those who are “blessed” by the government.
“This government has presented a budget completely ignoring the hardship of the poor.
“They are working to protect the interests of the rich,” he said it in response to the budget proposed on Thursday (9 June).
The poor population of the country will fall into a more extreme situation due to the various measures proposed in the new budget, he added.
“Inflation is just above 6 per cent as per the government data but in reality, it is 12 per cent [double the official figure].”This situation will become more difficult as a result of the proposed budget,” said Dr Khan.
The BNP leader said that the severe devaluation of Bangladeshi taka against the US dollar and the abnormal rise in commodity prices are making people’s lives “miserable.”
“There is no solution [for the aforementioned issues] in this budget,” he said adding that the pressure of the 36 per cent budget deficit will fall on those who are marginalised.
Dr Khan also condemned the physical infrastructures of mega projects taking the lion’s share of the development budget. The general people want to know about who received government incentives and how much was paid to them, the senior BNP leader added.
