Kamruzzaman Bablu :
The work of preparing national budget for the fiscal year 2016-17 is expected to be completed by the third week of May although controversies over value-added tax rate still remain unresolved.
Finance Division and National Board Revenue have been working on the budget.
The Division and the NBR will present the last budget of the present government to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on May 11 and 14 respectively as national election is due in 2018.
Finance Division officials said Finance Minister AMA Muhith will place the budget in Parliament on July 1. Meanwhile in a pre-budget meeting, local lawmakers demanded the significant increase of the size of block allocation in the next budget.
But now Members of Parliament with constituencies outside the city corporation areas are getting Tk20 crore each through the ministry of LGRD and Cooperatives.
The lawmakers’ demand of increasing block allocation in the budget is likely to be considered, said officials.
In the annual meeting of Asian Development Bank in Japan last week, finance minister questioned why local businessmen are not interested to invest in the country during the last two years – 2015 and 2016.
Finance minister said there couldn’t be any excuse for not investing in the country by local businesses as there was no political turbulence in these years.
Finance division sources said the next fiscal year’s development outlay has been set at Tk1,64,031 crore and it will be Tk44,735 crore or nearly 37.5pc bigger than this year’s Tk1,19296 crore revised Annual Development Programme.
As election nears, the government wants to show people visible progress of development, especially implementation of first track projects.
Without a big push for the country ‘s revenue earning this fiscal year, it is not possible to generate funds for development projects, officials said.
At the last meeting of Fiscal Coordination Council and Budget Management Committee, the planning ministry called for special initiatives to expedite the rate of ADP implementation.
The target of the government development expenditure is not going to achieve unless timely implementation of the first track projects.
The work of preparing national budget for the fiscal year 2016-17 is expected to be completed by the third week of May although controversies over value-added tax rate still remain unresolved.
Finance Division and National Board Revenue have been working on the budget.
The Division and the NBR will present the last budget of the present government to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on May 11 and 14 respectively as national election is due in 2018.
Finance Division officials said Finance Minister AMA Muhith will place the budget in Parliament on July 1. Meanwhile in a pre-budget meeting, local lawmakers demanded the significant increase of the size of block allocation in the next budget.
But now Members of Parliament with constituencies outside the city corporation areas are getting Tk20 crore each through the ministry of LGRD and Cooperatives.
The lawmakers’ demand of increasing block allocation in the budget is likely to be considered, said officials.
In the annual meeting of Asian Development Bank in Japan last week, finance minister questioned why local businessmen are not interested to invest in the country during the last two years – 2015 and 2016.
Finance minister said there couldn’t be any excuse for not investing in the country by local businesses as there was no political turbulence in these years.
Finance division sources said the next fiscal year’s development outlay has been set at Tk1,64,031 crore and it will be Tk44,735 crore or nearly 37.5pc bigger than this year’s Tk1,19296 crore revised Annual Development Programme.
As election nears, the government wants to show people visible progress of development, especially implementation of first track projects.
Without a big push for the country ‘s revenue earning this fiscal year, it is not possible to generate funds for development projects, officials said.
At the last meeting of Fiscal Coordination Council and Budget Management Committee, the planning ministry called for special initiatives to expedite the rate of ADP implementation.
The target of the government development expenditure is not going to achieve unless timely implementation of the first track projects.
