Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has slammed the government for the provision of whitening black money that is proposed in the national budget for the fiscal year 2020-2021.
BNP asked the government for including measures to bring back money laundered abroad instead of offering black money whitening provision which will encourage corruption.
BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, while speaking at a virtual press conference on Friday, made these comments on the upcoming fiscal year’s budget, on behalf of BNP.
We proposed allocating 5% of the GDP for the health sector in the budget, Fakhrul said.
Regardless of the amount, the most important thing is the transparent and corruption-free use of it; however, there is no directive regarding that in the budget, he added.
Too much money has been allocated to several sectors like transport and power which do not need it right now, the BNP leader commented.
He said the Rooppur Power Plant Project could have been delayed for some time and the money could have been spent on employment, food security, and health.
“That was not done because the government did not want to close off the opportunity for corruption there,” he said.
The proposed budget does not have the necessary structure to deal with the coronavirus crisis, the politician stated.
He also questioned the acceptability and credibility of the proposed revenue and expenditure.
The revenue collection target for the coming fiscal year has been set at Tk378,000 crore.
Of the amount, the NBR has been tasked to realize a revenue collection target of Tk330,000 crore (more than 50% growth) which is unrealistic, he said.
Fakhrul said: “The NBR will fail to raise this amount, thus increasing the budget deficit in the process.”
It will not be possible for the banks to provide Tk85,000 crore of the proposed deficit financing, he said.
“NBR’s failure to raise such a huge amount of revenue and the banks’ inability to finance the deficit will lead to a disaster,” he further added.
Earlier on Thursday, Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal proposed the national budget of Tk568,000 crore for the 2020-21 fiscal year in the Bangladesh Parliament.
With the proposed budget, the government has expanded the scope to whiten black money in several sectors for one year starting from July 1, 2020.
