The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Wednesday termed the proposed budget for the 2023–24 financial year as anti-people and deceptive, saying that it was designed to loot national wealth worth several billion dollars under corrupt regime patronage.
Speaking at a press conference, the party's secretary general, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, said that the unrealistic and imaginary budget would not ensure people's welfare.
‘The newly presented budget is just an annual manifesto of the current ‘fascist looter' government to maintain economic corruption,’ he said, adding that the budget was highly ambitious and non-implementable.
‘It is just a budget made by plunderers to loot billions of dollars under the current corrupt government's patronage,' he said.
BNP arranged the press conference to give the party's formal reaction to the proposed national budget for the financial year 2023–24, six days after the finance minister presented it in parliament.
In the budget, Fakhrul said, the finance minister did not acknowledge the ongoing economic crisis, growing income disparity, dwindling foreign exchange reserves, rampant money laundering, and huge debt burden on the shoulders of the country's people.
At the press conference, BNP standing committee member Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury said that their party was not taking the statements made by the Awami League and government ministers about the dialogue with the BNP over the poll-time government seriously.
He, however, said that the party would respond if a proposal was officially made.
He said that it was not necessary to answer who was saying what at which gathering.
‘We are changing politics. We will consider responding if you submit a written proposal to us,’ he added.
On Tuesday, in a meeting of the ruling Awami League-led 14-party alliance, AL advisory council member Amir Hossain Amu said if necessary they would join a face-to-face dialogue with the opposition through the mediation of the United Nations.
