People are not serious about a budget from this government

THE budget of 2023-24 has been proposed as a routine work since the way the government is running the affairs of the state for more than a decade nothing could have been changed if a budget was not presented at all. After the country fell into the present economic crisis almost a year ago, the finance minister was not in the scene. It was said that the finance minister A H M Mustafa Kamal was ill. He remained absent from his office for a long time. The reality is bureaucrats are taking policy decisions regarding the economy. It is believed that he, as a finance minister, has become redundant now.
Even then there is the formality of presenting a budget and he came to the parliament accompanied by the prime minister and presented the budget of 2023-24 with an outlay of Tk 761,785 crore. The budget that targets GDP at 7.5 percent has been criticised by both the economists and common people alike because there are many things in it which are not founded on reality. When the government is in its dying days facing threat of blanket visa restrictions from the US in regards to holding a free and fair election, the budget with a deficit budget of Tk 262,785 crore has invited sharp criticisms from people because of its unrealistic and unattainable goals.
The present rate of inflation in the country is 9.25 per cent and there is no visible effort to contain it but the budget has proposed that in the coming fiscal it would bring this figure down to only 6 per cent which, in the present economic crisis marked by high food inflation and dollar crisis, is just impossible to attain.
Then why has the finance minister set this target? The planning minister gave an answer to the media. A target has been set, he said, and the government would act to achieve this, but in the end the government might miss the target. Is this a logical explanation? In reality, this unrealistic target has been proposed to befool the public. But people are not fools.
The budget has also proposed rather bewilderingly a minimum Tk 2000 as income tax on anyone who will submit his return even if he does not have income of tax threshold which has been proposed at Tk 350,000 in this budget from the previous Tk 300,000. How this tax could be justified has also been questioned. Even more bewilderingly, the NBR chairman yesterday commented that by paying this tax the poor people would have the ‘glory’ of becoming a taxpayer. What a cruel joke!
The military budget has been increased in this fiscal, but education’s share in GDP keeps falling. Moreover, VAT on daily essentials has been increased but on raw materials VAT has been reduced. Yet the government is calling the budget proposed as poor-friendly.
The truth is, people will not take any budget from this government seriously.