Critics of budget stupid, says Muhith

Critics of budget stupid, says Muhith

Dhaka, Jun 8 (Just News): Finance minister AMA Muhith on Friday came down heavily on the critics of the proposed national budget for terming it ‘anti-poor’ and ‘appeasing affluent class’ and said that they were ‘stupid’ and ‘not patriots’.

At a press conference at the Osmani Memorial Auditorium a day after placing the proposed budget for 2018-19 financial year on Thursday, Muhith said that the decision to decrease corporate tax on banks was not made overnight and it was rather motivated by a need because of its high rate compared to other countries.

Muhith made a U-turn on establishment of a commission on ailing banking sector saying that responsibility of appointing the proposed commission was shifted to the next elected government.

The finance minister placed the Tk 4,64,573 crore proposed budget in parliament, the last one of the present government’s back-to-back five-year tenures.

He was flanked by a number of ministers, including agricultural minister Matia Chowdhury, planning minister AHM Kamal and information minister Hasanul Haq Inu and prime minister’s advisers Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury and Mashiur Rahman at the press conference.

At one stage, Muhith got annoyed while answering question on the reason for cutting corporate tax by 2.5 per cent on banks whose owners already obtained facilities like reduction of cash reserve requirement to 5.5 per cent and extension of tenure of directorship for consecutive nine years from the previous six years.

‘I can’t resist my temper to say that you came with set questions,’ he said, claiming that all were meaningless questions and statements of lies.

AHM Kamal explained that bank owners were given tax facility so that their business could flourish and contribute to the national economy.

Bangladesh Bank governor Fazle Kabir, who was present at the press conference, said that banks were facing problems in liquidity management that even forced the central bank to sell $2.7 billion to stabilise the market.

The government policymakers also denied that the proposed budget would affect the majority as critics observed that the expansion of Value Added Tax might cause price hike of rice, furniture, cosmetics, clothes, imported mobile phone sets, energy drinks and tobacco and small apartments affecting majority.

The policymakers claimed that all budgets made in the past one decade aiming to bring equity.

Asked if the proposed budget was election-oriented, Muhith replied that not only the proposed one but all budgets were election-oriented.

Answering another question on budgetary measure on housing loan for bureaucrats at subsidised interested rate, Muhith said that except the present government nobody gave so much facility to the public servants.

Muhith also credited the present government for obtaining high growth of over 7 per cent despite less investment and revenue generation and lower than expected employment.

‘Better utilisation of asset enabled us to get high growth,’ he said.

Muhith expressed optimism that the implementation of the proposed budget would be higher while commenting on the observation that implementation rate fell to 80 per cent in recent years.

He ruled out any adverse impact on debt servicing for taking loan on high interest rate for implementation of big projects.

‘Debt burden of $32 billion is still low for us,’ he said.


(Justnews/ys/2320hr)