He may be only a couple of days away from making history, but AMA Muhith, the first finance minister of the country to present six consecutive budgets, sees this as more of a challenge than an achievement.
In an interview with the Dhaka Tribune, Muhith said: “We must now seriously think about implementing everything that we have said, started or failed to launch over the last five years. [Coming to power for the second time on the trot means that] we must now be far more responsible to the people of the country [than before].”
He said there were both advantages and disadvantages of one party forming two consecutive governments.
“The advantage is that we will now be able to maintain a continuity of the work that we have done over the last five years... The reality in our country is that whenever a new government assumes power, everybody thinks it will start many things, but will not be able to finish many of them... We sometimes think – let us leave it for the next government. But, we cannot do that now.”
While talking to the Dhaka Tribune correspondent at the Sylhet circuit house on Thursday, the minister said the coming budget was fundamentally different from any previous budget, there was the added pressure of wrapping up unfinished jobs.
“We have taken our economy to an unprecedented level and for that, we need to think big, think about big projects. The coming budget will be a reflection of this.
“Thankfully, we have two big projects in our hands – the Padma bridge and turning the Dhaka-Chittagong Highway into four lanes... The work on the Dhaka-Chittagong Highway has already begun. There were some complications with the Chinese contractor... But we have resolved those,” Muhith said.
Terming the proposed Padma bridge as one of the transformative projects, he said: “The country’s economic growth does not get a boost unless these transformation projects are completed.”
He asserted that the Padma bridge would be built within the next four years, that is during the present tenure of the government.
He also shared some of his plans for the coming years: “Initiatives will also be taken for the metro rail and building a convention centre of international standards near Dhaka. We hope to begin the work for the metro rail in the next year’s budget.”
Muhith said one of his major achievements was the level of revenue collection.
“Despite numerous obstacles, we have achieved unthinkable success in collecting revenue. When I placed the budget five years ago, revenue collection was only Tk53,000 crore. Today, it has increased more than twofolds going past Tk1,30,000 crore,” the minister said.
Asked what his regrets were, he said: “Corruption has been a big headache. Many corrupt people have been spared... Things cannot go on like this... Criminals are also sometimes indulged. That is painful.
“I admit that my party has also sometimes given them [the criminals] shelter. They should never be spared,” the minister said.
By presenting the FY2014-15 national budget in parliament on June 5, Muhith will equal late Saifur Rahman’s record of presenting eight budgets during two separate tenures of the BNP government.
Muhith presented his first two budgets on behalf of military ruler HM Ershad’s government in the 1980s.
In reply to another question, he claimed that the defence ministry was not getting the highest allocation this year since a portion of that money would be spent for the cadet colleges and the other educational institutions run the by the armed forces.