Budget does not reflect people’s hopes and aspirations: Manjurul Islam Bhuiyan
Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami Dhaka City South nayeb-e-ameer Manjurul Islam Bhuiyan said budget does not reflect the country’s people’s hopes and aspirations as it protects the interests of the looters, corrupted people and elite of the society.
Rejecting the budget of the current fiscal year 2022-23, he also urged the government to protect the interest of the country’s marginal, lower middle class and middle class who have been deprived of and neglected in the budget.
He came up with the remarks at a protest program on the backdrop of the government’s announcement of national proposed budget on Thursday.
The demonstration was held near Kamalapur Railway Station in the capital.
The city assistant secretaries advocate Helal Uddin, Delwar Hossain, Kamal Hossain and Dr. Abdul Mannan, city working committee members Engineer Sheikh Al Amin, Abdus Salam, Sheikh Sharif Uddin Ahmed and Mubarak Hossain, among others were present at the protest.
Speaking at the function, Manzurul Islam Bhuiyan said although the ruling Awami League government has prepared this year’s budget under the theme ‘Overcoming the impact of Covid and returning to the continuity of development’, this budget did not reflect the hopes and aspirations of the people.
This year, the budget has focused on inflation, job creation, agriculture, health care, human resources and education, but it has nothing to do with reality, he said.
As a result of this budget, the cost of living of the people and the prices of daily necessities will increase further, he stated.
The peoples’ suffering, pain and pangs of the people will soar due to the proposed budget and they have rejected this budget, he said.
He further said that the main driving force of the economy of Bangladesh is agriculture but the agriculture sector has not been given due importance in the proposed budget.
There was no talk of reducing the cost of production materials, including chemical fertilizers, he says.
The role of workers in the economic development of Bangladesh is undeniable. No allocation was mentioned in the budget for the protection of the workers’ health and rights, he again said.
The allocation for disaster management is also insufficient. There is no direction in the budget for the rehabilitation of our expatriate brothers. The health system of the country is very fragile. Hospitals do not have adequate medical supplies. People are dying due to lack of treatment. Even in this situation, there was not enough allocation for the health sector, Bhuiyan said.
Manzurul Islam Bhuiyan termed the proposed budget as ‘debt dependent’ and said some 36.14 percent of the total budget is debt dependent.
The government will not be able to repay the loan like last year, he argued.
The proposed budget and growth rate are unrealistic and too, Manjurul pointed out.
The government’s proposed budget is likely to further erode the country’s financial discipline, the central Jamaat leader opined.
The budget proposes to legalize money laundering abroad while the proposal has been made in the budget to give legitimacy to the huge of amount of illicit money earned through extortion, corruption and looting for a long decade, he mentioned.
Legalizing money laundering abroad is nothing but a compromise with the corrupted people, he said, adding that it will further encourage corruption.
This money is not owned by the government, but this money is owned by the people, he added.
