In the government’s budget formulation, the budget should be formulated for the people without maintaining the old continuity. Strengthening the tax administration, taking a concerted initiative to collect taxes online, introducing a faceless system should be done to increase the revenue.
Speakers said this in the first session of the discussion program titled ‘Bangladesh Budget in Global Uncertainty: Priorities in Employment, Investment and Reforms and a Prosperous Bangladesh without Discrimination of People’s Expectations’ organized by the ‘Shadow Budget Committee’ of National Citizen Party (NCP) on Thursday. The session was organized under the theme Economic Reforms and Transition to Middle Income Countries.
Jatiya Nagrik Party member secretary Akhtar Hossain inaugurated the discussion program. Welcome speech was given by the head of shadow budget formulation committee. Atiq Mujahid. The article was presented by Abdullah Al Faisal, Deputy Head of the Shadow Budget Committee.
Jatiya Nagrik Party Joint Member Secretary Sadia Farzana Dina presided over this session and Jatiya Nagrik Party Chief Coordinator Naseeruddin Patwari presided over this session.
Former CAG, Finance Secretary and Sonali Bank Chairman Mohammad Muslim Chowdhury, University of British Columbia Development Economist Dr. Khan Zahirul Islam and CPD Additional Director (Research) Taufiqul Islam Khan were present as discussants.
Akhtar Hossain said on the occasion, ‘Budget was not the main issue during Awami League. It was a paper document. At that time the country was run by a corporate group. They owned the money of the country. It was through their hands that the country’s money was smuggled abroad. Now that they are citizens of Bangladesh, they don’t even want to hunt. Now when the time of accountability has come, they don’t want to be accountable to the country either. They want to give up citizenship. We will expect the government, this year’s budget should not be the budget of looters. The budget should be for common people.’
Akhtar Hossain said, ‘Budget is the most routine and important event in Parliament; with which civic engagement is greatest. Every year in the budget we hear a word that education and health will be given importance in the budget and the budget will be budgeted for marginalized people. But when passed, we see a budget in continuity with the traditional previous year.’
Dr. Atiq Mujahid said, ‘We talked to people from different classes and professions before today’s budget meeting. Our team spoke to the workers in Ashulia. Talked to the small traders of the caravan market. Talked to the small traders of Khatun Bazar in Chittagong. Apart from this we talked to small and medium businessmen. Apart from this, I have spoken to university students, government officials and employees.
Dr. Atiq Mujahid also said, ‘I have understood by talking to people that the people of Bangladesh do not want mercy from the government. They want a fairness. Tax burden should not be burdened only on low income people, industrialists should not be left out. They want an assurance that the business they are investing in, how the pipeline will work and that their business will not suffer. They want to see accountability in how the budget is spent. We talked to small traders. They want a tax system they can trust.’
Former Finance Secretary and chairman of Sonali Bank Mohammad Muslim Chowdhury sees a major crisis in its financing and structural reforms even though he has no objection to the large size of the upcoming budget of Bangladesh. He said, ‘The country’s tax-GDP ratio is very low. If the government borrows from the local market, the borrowing costs of the private sector will surely increase. As a result, increasing investment in the private sector will be very difficult. If the government wants to keep money for the private sector, it has to overprint money in the market. This could have been done in case of low inflation. But our inflation has been too high for too long. As a result, it will create more chaos in the economy.’
Mohammad Muslim Chowdhury also said, ‘Our government has some safety net programs. it’s good The amount of money is also significantly higher. We have over 100 such programs in 20 ministries. If these programs are brought under one umbrella and digitized, the administrative cost will be saved and the beneficiaries can be increased by 30 to 40 percent.’ Apart from this, he urged to bring down the number of banks to half by closing or liquidating the bankrupt banks of the country and to introduce a completely ‘faceless’ or digital system for tax collection.
CPD Additional Director (Research) Taufiqul Islam Khan said, “According to the ‘Public Finance and Budget Management Act 2009’, the budget is not just an income-expenditure account, it presents the macroeconomic policy. Under this Act, the Finance Minister will present the budget progress every three months. As per Section 12(2) of this Act, although there is a rule to present the revised budget by the month of March as soon as possible, it is not done, which is a major legal violation. Apart from this, he mentioned that the quarterly budget progress report was stopped on the website as a lack of transparency.
Highlighting the current crisis, Taufiqul Islam Khan said that in the fiscal year 2023-24, the recurrent or current expenditure of the government was Tk 40 thousand crores more than the total revenue income. Due to this deficit, the development expenditure of important sectors like health and education has to be reduced by 25 percent. Apart from this, the credit flow to the private sector has come down to 4 percent. He proposed an integrated digital tax system by linking bank accounts, land and vehicle registration through NID to curb tax evasion. He said, ‘I have been hearing about NBR reforms for the last two decades. But the key is implementation. The NBR reform that is being delayed, I think, will come up again in Parliament. The main reason is that NBR collection and policy space at the same time. As a result, there is a conflict of interest here.’
Dr. Khan Zahirul Islam said, ‘The banking sector of any country in the world is the heart of the economy. Our country’s banking sector is ruined. What are its problems? Our proposed budget for next year is Tk 9 lakh 30 thousand crores. In Bangladesh, the amount of defaulted loans in Bangladesh alone is Tk 630 thousand crores. If there were no defaulted loans, imagine where our budget implementation could have been taken.
Khan Zahirul Islam said, ‘Only S Alam Group has smuggled a total of Tk 1 lakh 90 thousand crores from the country. The next budget is equal to the budget that the government has put in ADP. The current government has amended the Bank Resolution Act to allow the old owners to take back ownership. The government is giving opportunity to looters again. Second is central banking. The Prime Minister appointed an accountant to the post of Governor. It does not exist anywhere in the world. An accountant has no job in a central bank. We have to make the bank completely independent.’
In the president’s speech, NCP chief coordinator Nasiruddin Patwari said that it is necessary to reform the tax system. Poor people pay taxes; On the other hand, those who are big people, they loot from there. If tax administration is not strengthened, the relationship of citizens with the state will decline. People will lose faith in the state. When the interim government wanted to separate the NBAR, the two factions of the NBR split. And now those who talk about democracy have tried their best to obstruct the NBR at that time.
