It’s a budget of plundering: Fakhrul

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir has said the proposed budget was prepared only to widen the scope for the ruling party leaders and activists to plunder more public money in the coming year.

He said this while speaking at a council of Dhaka north city unit BNP’s four wards under Kafrul Thana on Thursday.

Saying that the budget for the fiscal year 2022-2023 was placed by those who have no right to present it, he further said, “Every year we come up with our reaction to the budget, but we don’t want to give any reaction to it this time…who’re placing this budget? They’re not representatives of the people.” 

“They (govt) prepare the budget only for indulging in looting. They make a calculation on how much money they will plunder in the future. By unveiling a Tk 678,064 crore budget (for the financial year 2022-2023) they will now make an estimate on how much they'll plunder from there,” he added.

The BNP leader said he is unwilling to talk much about the national budget as it will only widen the scope of plundering for the ruling party leaders and activists, reported UNB. 

Fakhrul said the entire nation is passing through a bad time as those who usurped power and snatched all the rights of the country’s people. “Not only that they established a reign of plundering in the country.”

Earlier in the day, Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal unveiled the Tk 678,064 crore national budget for the financial year 2022-2023 with a special focus on economic recovery from uncertainties caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war.

This is the country’s 51st budget and the 23rd of the Awami League government in five terms.

The proposed expenditure for the new fiscal year is 14.24 per cent higher than the revised budget for the outgoing fiscal year (Tk 5,93,500 crore). That amount of money is equal to 15.23 per cent of the total GDP of Bangladesh.

The size of the budget given by Kamal in the outgoing fiscal year was 12 per cent more than the revised budget in the fiscal year 2020-21 and was equal to 16.4 per cent of GDP.