Proposed budget did not reflect people’s hopes, aspirations: BNP

The BNP today said that the proposed budget for fiscal year 2021-2022 did not reflect people's hopes and aspirations.

"This budget has completely failed to ensure livelihood and lives of the people in this pandemic," Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, party's secretary general, told journalists at a press conference.

Fakhrul came up with the formal reaction at the party chairperson's Gulshan office a day after the budget was placed in the parliament.

The BNP leader said people's welfare was ignored in the budget because the government is not accountable towards the people of the country.

"That's why the budget was aimed at to the people who will continue to corruption. It goes with their (government) character. We are an economy that will ensure Good governance and accountability but those are absent in the budget," he alleged.

Fakhrul, who was once an economics teacher, said an elected government can only formulate a budget that will uphold the hopes and aspirations of the people of the country.

"There is no specific direction on how people will be protected from the pandemic," he said.

He also said while the slogan of the budget "Bangladesh Towards a Resilient Future Protecting Lives And Livelihoods National Budget Speech 2021-2022" sounds good there is nothing specific for the poor people.

"Rather, we see an old-fashioned dependency on bank loans," he said.

The BNP leader said this budget has ignored the expected stimulus package for the poor people.

He said there was a huge discussion about health sector but allocation was around 1 percent of GDP.

"It is painful. This allocation will not meet up the demand of the health sector. Allocation should be five percent of GDP," he demanded.

Fakhrul said there was no specific roadmap of Covid-19 vaccination as government only said 25 lakh vaccines will be administered each month. "But how this will be implemented is absent in the proposed budget."

Criticising the government, Fakhrul said the highest employment is in the SME sector but the industrialists basically got the incentives.

Regarding the corporate tax, the BNP leader said, "the finance minister has given enough to the businessmen. Finance minister himself is a businessman too. Middle class frustrated through this budget but business quarter is happy."